MOSCOW (MRC) -- India plans to nearly double its oil refining capacity in the next five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, offering a much more aggressive timeline than previously, despite the coronavirus pandemic blighting the economy, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
The country's energy minister was quoted in June as saying India's oil refining capacity could jump to 450-500 million tons in 10 years from the current level of about 250 million tons. But addressing a petroleum university's convocation, Modi said "work is being done to nearly double the country's oil refining capacity in the next five years".
The convocation was also addressed virtually by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, whose Reliance Industries Ltd operates the world's biggest oil refinery in Modi's home state of Gujarat. Modi said India was also aiming to raise the share of natural gas in its energy-consumption mix by up to four times. The cleaner-burning fuel currently accounts for about 6% of the energy consumed in the country.
India would achieve its targets of increasing renewable energy capacity to 175 gigawatts by 2022 and 450 gigawatts by 2030 ahead of schedule, Modi added. The country had renewable energy capacity of about 75 gigawatts at the end of 2018.
As MRC informed earlier, India terminated the anti-dumping investigation on monoethylene glycol (MEG) imports from Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and Singapore. The applicant, Reliance Industries Limited, withdrew the application on anti-dumping investigation via a letter on 18 November stating that “in view of the current situation, they have withdrawn the aforesaid application with a liberty to resubmit the same”, according to a notification from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The anti-dumping investigation was launched on 9 December 2019.
MEG is mainly used in the production of polyester fibres, resins and films (around 80% of global consumption), followed by use in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin. It is also used as automotive antifreeze.
As per MRC' ScanPlast, calculated consumption of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) reached 52,71o tonnes in September 2020, down 27% compared to the same time a year before. Total consumption of PET in Russia in the nine months of 2020 reached 530,750 tonnes, down 22% than the same indicator last year.
MRC