Saturday, May 23, 2015

India is Facing Polypropylene Shortages

The 2014 report “Indian Petrochemical Industry – Country Paper from India”, written by India’s Chemicals & Petrochemicals Manufacturers’ Association, provides data on India’s actual and estimated propylene capacity and production amounts from 2010 to 2016.   Also provided are polypropylene actual and estimated demand amounts from 2010 to 2014.  (Click here to read the report – PDF file)   Using this data, I computed the compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) for the propylene capacity and production amounts and for the polypropylene demand amounts.  (3.5% CAGR for propylene capacity; 5.4% for propylene production; 6.7% for polypropylene demand)

Assuming amounts provided in the report are reasonably accurate and polypropylene is produced only from propylene, beginning in 2018 India will lack sufficient propylene processing capacity to meet the country’s polypropylene demand.  In 2018, polypropylene demand will be 5,400,480 metric tons and the propylene capacity will be 5,311,684 metric tons, a propylene shortage of 88,796 metric tons.  The propylene shortage will increase at a 25% CAGR reaching 979,925 metric tons by 2022.

India’s impressive GDP growth rate accounts for the polypropylene demand rate.  The long-term construction time and high expense to build facilities that can process petroleum into propylene is a factor in India’s lag in keeping up with the polypropylene demand.


I did an Internet search to find Indian companies that manufacture propylene. The table below shows what I found.  The total found capacity agrees reasonably well with the data in the Indian report referred to above.

abbreviated name full name parent/joint venture location propylene capacity (metric tons)
bcpl brahmaputra cracker & polymer ltd (bcpl) gail/indian oil/assam gov't/numaligarh refinery ltd dibrugarh, assam 60,000
bpcl  bharat  petroleum corporation limited (bpcl) bharat  petroleum corporation limited (bpcl) kochi 500,000
cpcl chennai petroleum corporation limited(cpcl) indian oil company chennai 35,000
hmel hindustan-mittal energy ltd (hmel) hindustan petrolleum corporation/mittal energy bhatinda 450,000
hpc hindustan petrolleum corporation hindustan petrolleum corporation visakhapatnam 65,000
hpl  haldia petroleum ltd (hpl) haldia petroleum ltd kolkata 345,000
ioc indian oil company (ioc) indian oil company panipat 650,000
ioc indian oil company (ioc) indian oil company mathura 165,000
opal ongc petro additions ltd (opal) ongc/gail/gujarat state petroleum dahej, gujarat 400,000
ril reliance industries (ril) reliance industries vadodara 110,000
ril reliance industries (ril) reliance industries hazira 350,000
ril reliance industries (ril) reliance industries dahej  360,000
ril reliance industries (ril) reliance industries nagothane 65,000
ril reliance industries (ril) reliance industries jamnagar 920,000
total propylene capacity 4,475,000