Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC) Board on Wednesday accorded stage-1 approval for the setting up of India’s first Styrene Monomer Project with a capacity of 3.87 lakh tonnes per annum at an estimated cost of ₹4,495 crore at the firm’s Panipat Refinery & Petrochemical Complex in Haryana.

The project will be commissioned by 2026-27, Indian Oil said in a statement. Presently India’s Styrene consumption is around 9 lakh tonnes per annum, and the demand is expected to increase consistently over the next 15-20 years, it added.

However, there is no domestic Styrene capacity in India, and the entire demand is met through imports from Singapore, West Asia and South-East Asia, causing significant inconvenience to the domestic Styrene downstream industry, Indian Oil said.

The proposed Styrene Project will reduce the nation’s import dependence substantially and result in considerable forex savings of about ₹3,650 crore per annum, it added.

Styrene is used to produce poly styrene, paints and coatings or acrylic, unsaturated polyester resins, and elastomers such as Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene and Styrene-Butadiene Rubber.

In February, the firm’s board approved the Panipat Refinery Expansion Project to enhance its capacity from the existing 15 mmtpa to 25 mmtpa with a capex of ₹32,946 crore.

As part of the Expansion Project, a new high severity Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) of 2.5 mmtpa capacity, based on Indian Oil’s flagship INDMAX technology, would be set up to maximise LPG production and manufacture Propylene and Ethylene. The Styrene Project will utilise this Ethylene alongside the Benzene that is already being produced at the Panipat Complex.

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