Odisha on Monday cleared investment proposals totalling Rs 2,04,069 crore, mostly in the petroleum sector. Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCLNSE -1.23 %) will invest Rs 1,00,300 crore in expanding its Paradip refinery capacity from 15 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 25 mtpa and setting up a naphtha cracker unit. 

The high level committee under Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik cleared IOCL’s proposal on Monday. IOCL will add 10 mt capacity to its Paradip refinery, and build a dual feed cracker unit of 3-4 mtpa which will be fed largely (80-90 per cent by Naphtha and 10-20 per cent Ethane), it will also be setting up a 1.3 mtpa petcoke gasification plant. 

IOCL is also investing another Rs 9136 crore in a 1.2 mtpa PX-PTA (Purified Terephthalic Acid complex) at the same site. 

The investment proposal submitted to the government, through its single window clearance system in July, also consists of a 1.4 mtpa ethylene unit, a 0.65 mtpa propylene unit, 650 ktpa poly propylene and other related units. Patnaik’s government has been hoping to draw investments into downstream petrochemichal sector and IOCL’s petrochemical complex will help sustain them. 

The expansion will require 4200 acres of government and private and land. The state–owned oil company has already invested Rs 35,000 crore in its crude oil refinery in coastal Paradip, and post this investment will be one of the largest investors in the state. 

The committee also approved the Rs 78,225 crore investment proposal of Haldia Petrochemicals towards a hydrocarbon processing complex with a light crude oil refinery, aromatics unit and ethylene cracker unit near the proposed Subarnarekha port in Balasore district. 

A Rs 1676 crore proposal of Jindal (India) Ltd to set up a cold rolling complex of half a million tonne capacity at their Kalinganagar plant was also cleared. As was a proposal from Talcher Fertilizer Ltd to set up a coal based urea fertilizer complex of 1.99 mtpa investing Rs 14,732 crore.