News from Asia: Mid December

India

Baharat Petroleum Company Limited (BPCL) is planning on investing in petrochemicals and refinery expansions over the next five years. The company has reportedly earmarked Rs 200 billion in a petrochemical plant and expansion at the Kochi refinery. The petrochemical facility is expected to take up Rs 60 billion of the budget.

Hindustan Petroleum Company Limted (HPCL) filed a petition opposing the construction of residential housing near its Chembur based refinery. The court was told on Monday 12^th December that the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests sees no concern in constructing the building in the refinery’s vicinity. The court were told that the building will be far enough away from the facility for there to be no threat environmental or otherwise and all the necessary permissions for construction had been obtained.

Reliance Industries has formally announced that it now operates 600 retail outlets in India. There are approximately 1600 in the country.

Indonesia

The Indonesian Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry has said that the country will need to construct three new refineries in order to meet increasing demand for refined products. There are plans to construct the refineries in Balongan, West Java and Banten and Tuban in East Java.

Japan

Denki Kagaku Kogyo had to shut its styrene monomer plant due to a disruption in ethylene supply. The facility in Chiba was closed last weekend due to a problem with ethylene suppliers Maruzen Petrochemical. Maruzen took its steam cracker offline earlier this month due to a fire at its power transmission complex, this has had a knock on effect to ethylene supply.

Idemitsu Kosan Co. has announced plans to take two of its four crude distillation units offline in 2012 for planned maintenance. The maintenance length is yet to be decided and expects production from its four Japanese refineries to be reduced.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/20122011/mid_december_news_from_asia/