Page 59 - demo

INDIAN SCENARIO

industry in this sector. The current production capacity in the country is only 0.385 MT thereby
creating gap of 2.115 MT, which would primarily be met through imports from Middle East and
China. Due to insufficient domestic production, in FY09 the net import of methanol was 1.06
MT i.e. more than 4 times the domestic production of 0.24 MT. Imports have grown from 0.5
MT in FY07 to 0.8 MT in FY10. Thus, investment opportunity exists for a world scale capacity
of over 2 MT, requiring an investment of approximately $0.9 billion (Rs. 4,000 Crore) [25].
However, feedstock availability continues to be a major concern for Indian chemical industry.
Availability as well as pricing of natural gas and naphtha at competitive cost are major constraints.
The poor quality of Indian coal makes production of methanol through this route uncompetitive
at prevailing pricing for coal in India. As a result, the industry is primarily dependent on import
of methanol, the basic building block, from Middle East and China.
Large production capacity of methanol established in Middle East and China will continue to
put pressure on Indian industry. Viability of local production in the absence of any fiscal and
regulatory support from the Government will continue to be of concern. Towards this, methanol
production from pet coke and coal may be incentivized to make the production economically
viable.
The industry is currently operating plants which are much below global scale, hence there is
a need for consolidation and establishment of world scale plant. This can be achieved with
creation of favourable investment climate in the country. The capacity of methanol plants is
increasing to reduce investments, taking advantage of the economy of scale. The capacity
of a world scale plant has increased from 2500 MTPD a decade ago to about 5000 MTPD
today. Even larger plants up to 10,000 MTPD or above are considered to further improve the
economics. [149] There are five main producers of methanol in India. Gujarat Narmada Valley
Fertilizers Company Ltd (GNFC) is one of the leading producers of methanol in India. GNFC,
Deepak Fertilisers, and Assam Petrochemicals use technology from ICI to produce methanol,
while Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Ltd (RCF) and National Fertilizers Ltd use technology
from Haldor Topsøe Ltd. [50]. The installed capacities of the major manufacturers of
methanol in India is shown in Table 13.

TABLE 13
Installed Capacity of Methanol in India

Assam
Company GNFC Deepak RCF NFL GSFC TOTAL
Petro
Installed Capacity 2,38,000 1 2 85,000 3 23,000 41,250 1,73,250 6,60,500
(Ton/Year) 1,00,000 (525TPD)
Source 1 : [150], Source 2 : [151], Source 2 : [152],
GNFC is the largest producer of methanol in India. Assam Petrochem Ltd., is building a 500
TPD methanol plant at Namrup based on gas. Most of the methanol plants in India produce
syngas from natural gas, however the recent focus is to switch to coal, as is prevalent in China
[51]. There has been a proposal to set up a 1500 TPD methanol and 14 mil Cu ft./Day pipe gas
per day from Ranigunj coal [55].
Although there are no methanol plants in India based on coal, there are a few high ash coal
gasification plants coming up in India. This, at least, will open up the door for large scale syngas
production from coal. Shriram EPC Ltd., Chennai was planning coal gas plant of 150,000
Nm³/h at Orissa from high ash coal and Jindal has announced their plant for 100,000 Nm / h.
3
Envirotherm is likely to provide the technology developed by British Gas and Lurgi [52].

Methanol and DME Production: Survey and Roadmap | 2017 59