Styrene will be made in the country itself, Indian Oil will invest 4,495 crores

Indian Oil Corporation will set up a plant at a cost of Rs 4,495 crore to manufacture styrene used in rubber, paint and other industries in the country. The Board of Directors of Indian Oil Corporation has approved the first phase in this regard on Wednesday. This will be the first styrene plant in the country. At present it is completely imported.

The company said that the ‘styrene monomer project’ will have a capacity of 3.87 lakh tonnes per annum and the capital investment is expected to be Rs 4,495 crore for its implementation. The plant will be set up at IndianOil’s Panipat Refinery and Petrochemical Complex.

The project is expected to start production by FY 2026-27. Ethylene to make styrene will be sourced from the company’s Indmax unit, while benzene is produced at the Panipat campus.

At present, the country consumes about nine lakh tonnes of styrene every year, which is imported entirely from abroad. The demand is likely to increase further in the future. With the commencement of production at the indigenous plant, foreign exchange of $ 500 million will be saved.

Styrene is used to manufacture polystyrene, paints and coatings, unsaturated polyester resins and elastomers such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and styrene-butadiene rubber.

IndianOil said the approval to set up the styrene plant is part of a larger plan to increase production at the Panipat complex. The company’s board in February this year had approved raising the production capacity of the complex from 15 million tonnes to 25 million tonnes per annum with a capital investment of Rs 32,946 crore.