State-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) will be setting up a commercial plant of 50,000 metric tonnes per annum capacity to produce Superabsorbent Polymer (SAP). This will be saving the country foreign exchange worth Rs 1,000 crore, stated the company.
Before setting up the plant, the company is setting up a technology demonstration plant of 200 metric tonne per annum at Kochi Refinery.
The company stated the R&D team at BPCL has mastered the chemistry of SAP, using the in-house acrylic acid as feedstock, which is used in various hygiene products like diapers, adult incontinence products, feminine hygiene products, and similar applications
P Ravitej, Executive Director, Refineries, BPCL said, “SAP process development is a pioneering initiative of BPCL R&D towards independence in technology development and value addition to Acrylic acid produced from the first world scale Acrylic acid unit installed in India by BPCL.”
This will help India save forex and also make India AtmaNirbhar in this niche and fast growing segment, stated BPCL.
BPCL refineries at Mumbai & Kochi and subsidiary Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd., at Bina, Madhya Pradesh have a combined refining capacity of around 37 MMTPA.
Its marketing infrastructure includes network of installations, depots, retail outlets, aviation service stations and LPG distributors.
Its distribution network comprises around 18,000 Retail Outlets, 6,600 LPG distributorships, 733 Lubes distributorships, 123 POL storage locations, 52 LPG Bottling Plants, 58 Aviation Service Stations, 3 Lube blending plants and 4 cross-country pipelines.