BHANU PANDE, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, MARCH 23, 2006
NEW DELHI: Reliance Petroleum (RPL) is roping in US-based process technology major Dow Global Technologies (DGTI) as a technical collaborator for its new polypropylene plant. This could also have a catalyst plant along with a solvent extraction unit.
DGTI is a subsidiary of the $46-bn chemical giant, The Dow Chemical Company, which offers products and services in 175 countries across the world, helping them provide everything from fresh water, food and pharmaceuticals to paints, packaging and personal care products.
RPL is setting up a polypropylene plant at Jamnagar with a capacity of 9 lakh tonnes per annum (tpa). The company has proposed an option of installing a catalyst plant and solvent recovery unit with an initial capacity of 100 tpa with a provision of expanding it to 300 tpa by adding two more plants. It has approvals for the proposed polypropylene plant. DGTI will offer UNIPOL-PP fluidised gas process technology, which is being used by the other two Reliance plants at Jamnagar and Hazira.
The 10-year deal with Midland-based DGTI will see a lumpsum outgo of $26.55m on technology for the plant, while the catalyst technology and solvent recovery unit will attract a fee of $14m and $5.2m respectively. For the proposed fee, per tonne payment for technical know-how works out to $29.5.
The payment schedule has been staggered into four equal parts, beginning with the first payment due on signing, followed by ones on delivery of process design package and on the final commissioning of the plant. Earlier this month, RPL filed the draft prospectus with Sebi for its Rs 6,000-crore IPO slated for April. The IPO proceeds will be used to part-finance RPL’s greenfield refinery project and polypropylene plant at Jamnagar.
The company had recently mobilised Rs 6,750 crore through a syndicated loan deal. RPL is also setting up a Rs 27,000-crore export oriented refinery, with a capacity to process 5,80,000 barrels of crude per day.

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