P S Jayaraman, Vijay Sankar, Minister of Health M R K Panneerselvam, Hon’ble Deputy CM Dr M K Stalin at the inauguration.
PVC Complex at Cuddalore.
It was a dream come true for The Sanmar Group; 21 September 2009 goes down in the annals of the history of the Group as a Red Letter Day. The much awaited, much anticipated PVC project at Cuddalore was commissioned. Hon’ble Deputy CM Dr M K Stalin kindly consented to inaugurate the facilities.
Chemplast Sanmar’s Greenfield PVC project at Cuddalore was set up at an investment of Rs 600 crores. The facility with a capacity of 1,70,000 tonnes per annum is the only chemical project of such large scale that has come up in Tamil Nadu in the last 15 years. Together with the already existing capacity of 65,000 tonnes per annum at Mettur Dam, the total aggregate PVC capacity of the company now stands at 2,35,000 tonnes per annum, placing the company as one of the large PVC players in India.
Dr M K Stalin congratulated Chemplast for setting up a PVC plant with a capacity of 1,70,000 tonnes per annum at an investment of Rs 600 Crores. The global economic slow down has only a mild impact in the country, but Tamil Nadu is marching ahead in industrialisation of the state, he further added. According to a study conducted by Oxford Analytica, Tamil Nadu is the best state in the country for industrial investments. This was made possible due to good governance and better infrastructure facilities provided by the State Government headed by the Chief Minister, he said. He appreciated Chemplast Sanmar for installing a desalination plant for meeting their water needs and Zero Liquid Discharge Plant for recycling the liquid effluents. He also lauded the community development initiatives taken by the company, and endorsed the earlier appeal made by the Health Minister to participate in enhancing the health care facilities.
Dr M K Stalin, Vijay Sankar, The Sanmar Group
Vijay Sankar, Deputy Chairman of the Sanmar Group, in his welcome address, highlighted that this is the biggest investment in Chemical Sector in Tamil Nadu in the last 20 years.
He also lauded the efforts taken by the Government of Tamil Nadu to create a congenial atmosphere for the investors to start their operations in the State.
M R K Panneerselvam, Minister of Health, dedicated the Occupational Health Centre for the employees and appealed to the corporates to protect the environment and actively participate along with Government in providing quality health care by setting aside a percentage of their profits.
Presenting the special features of the Greenfield PVC plant, P S Jayaraman, Chairman, Chemplast Sanmar, said that the new PVC plant would step up industrialisation, as several medium and small scale industries will be set up to manufacture various products such as PVC pipes and sheets, upholstery, window frames and doors using PVC as raw material.
The PVC facility at Cuddalore is a world-class facility operating with the latest in technology. Chemplast is one of the country’s leading chemical companies, manufacturing PVC using VCM for over four decades at Mettur. The VCM will be imported and once the TCI Sanmar projects are commissioned, Chemplast will secure a tie up with TCI Sanmar for its supply of raw material VCM
The imported raw material is being pumped from the berthed ships through sub-sea/ land pipelines to the PVC plant. The MTF is connected to the VCM storage tanks located in the plant area by sophisticated “Pipe-in-Pipe” pipeline with attendant safety features, running a distance of about 3.5 km (1 km under the sea and 2.5 km in the land area). The material used for the pipe can withstand much higher pressures when ship unloading occurs. It is also suitably protected externally. There is thus enhanced safety to totally avoid any leakage. The pipeline in the land area is located in a corridor of approximately 30 meters width and is buried under the ground by 10 feet in concrete trenches.
The storage tanks inside the plant premises are of the “double integrity” type. This means that the inner cup holds the liquid VCM and the outer shell completely encloses the inner tank. This is the best-accepted design to eliminate any leakage and is based on technology supplied by M/s Ineos Vinyls, UK, one of the largest manufacturers of PVC. Chemplast is the only PVC company to bring and store VCM in a refrigerated condition at atmospheric pressure which enhances safety.
The plant is designed on the basis of “Zero Liquid Discharge” concept. All the process effluents are recycled back after treatment in a Reverse Osmosis plant and a forced circulation evaporator. This is a Rs 15 crore investment with a recurring cost of Rs 1 crore a year. A similar unit is in successful operation at the company’s PVC facility at Mettur.
Reverse osmosis
Reject management system
The water needs for the plant, estimated around 3,500 kilo litre a day will be drawn from the desalination facility. This would cost the company around Rs 40 per cubic metre for conversion of sea water for production use. The objective is to eliminate off-take of ground water.