India’s First PDH and PP Plant Under Pipeline: Lummus and Clariant, Grace Technologies Awarded Contract

India’s state-owned natural gas and petrochemical giant, Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), is all set to present India its first propane dehydrogenation (PDH) integrated polypropylene (PP) production facility at Usar in west Maharashtra. The project, due to commence operations in 2024, will incur a total cost of USD 1.2 billion. The planned unit, which is the first of its type in the Indian peninsula, will aid in meeting the surging domestic polypropylene demand in the country which is otherwise met through supplies from domestic steam crackers and fluid catalytic crackers, and overseas imports.

GAIL has awarded contract to the USA’s Lummus Technology to license the PDH plant technology. The planned PDH unit will be exploiting Lummus’s proprietary CATOFIN process technology and Clariant’s tailor-made catalysts to produce propylene with an annual capacity of 500 thousand tonnes which will be directly used as feed for the integrated polypropylene production unit of the same annual capacity. Grace Technologies Inc. will be licensing its proprietary Unipol technology to Usar’s PP unit.

Polypropylene is a thermoplastic polymer which exhibits high tensile strength and chemical resistance. Its properties warrant its extensive applications in various end-user sectors that include the packaging, automobile industry, construction, home appliances, healthcare, and electronics.

As per ChemAnalyst, the demand for polypropylene in India is expected to reach around 10,300 thousand tonnes in 2030 with the forecasted CAGR of over 8%. The packaging industry will remain the major driver for the growing polypropylene market in India. The commissioning of the mega PDH-PP project by GAIL in India is expected to maintain an unperturbed polypropylene supply to the end-user industries thereby enhancing India’s self-dependency. The consistent supply is expected to keep the prices of polypropylene and its downstream products stable for a considerable time period.