MUMBAI, June 8: Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) on Sunday commissioned a second two lakh tonnes per year polyethylene (PE) plant at its Hazira Petrochemicals Complex near Surat in Gujarat. This plant coupled with the first plant will produce the entire range of HDPE and LLDPE grades required by the Indian plastic processing industry.

Reliance has commissioned this polyethylene plant in 27 days, against an earlier world record of 42 days, a company press release said. Commissioning time is defined as the time taken from solvent going into the system to the final product coming out of it.

The state-of-the-art fully computerised plant employs highly efficient and flexible technology from Novacor. The earlier polyethylene plant, also with Novacor technology, has been operational at Hazira for over 5 years. This coupled with the market-proven product technology and technical services available in-house, would enable Reliance Industries to market and service the complete range of grades produced from these plants through its wide distribution network.

With this, Reliance Industries' polyethylene production capacity has nearly doubled to 4 lakh tonnes per year placing it among the top 10 global producers of polyethylene with swing plants.

Reliance Industries' polyethylene has been widely accepted in the market, thus certifying that the product meets the globally acceptable quality standards. The Hazira Petrochemical Complex has been certified ISO 9001.

Ethylene is the main raw material for producing polyethylene. Reliance has recently commissioned the world's largest grass-root multi-feed cracker at Hajira with a capacity to process 2.2 million tonnes of naphtha to yield 7.50 lakh tonnes of ethylene, 3.65 lakh tonnes of propylene and over one million tonnes of other products. The ethylene output from the cracker is sufficient to meet the entire captive requirement of Reliance Industries' polyethylene, MEG and poly vinyl chloride plants.

Captive availability of ethylene is likely to insulate Reliance from fluctuations in the international prices and will further save costs and enhance margins. With the cracker on stream, the polymer, polyester and fabric businesses of Reliance Industries are fully integrated, thus capturing value -addition at all stages of the petrochemicals chain.RIL has been told by Nova Chemicals, the licenser for the technology, that it is now the world's largest Sclairtech producer and has also just completed the fastest commissioning of any Sclairtech plant.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.