BPCL reissues new-spec Bina cracker tender
Bharat Petroleum subsidiary Bina Refinery wants bids by December 11 (2023) in its reissued tender to provide technology for an ethylene cracker with associated facilities as part of an upcoming petrochemicals complex.
On October 29 (2023), BPCL and its project consultant, Engineers India, reissued a tender for the "supply of know-how/licence, Basic Engineering and Design Package (BEDP), catalyst, and other related services for ethylene cracker and associated facilities" at its 7.8m t/y refinery in Madhya Pradesh. Over a year ago, BPCL received offers in the last tender where Lummus was the sole valid bidder for the ethylene cracker technology.
But an industry source says everything went silent shortly after bids were received, leading to speculation that BPCL had shelved the project. Eventually, Lummus did not extend its bid validity, we are told.
Technip, among others, avoided bidding to provide technology for the cracker, as they would be excluded from the much more valuable EPC contracts to set up the facilities. BPCL later scrapped the cracker technology tender but not the tenders for the other facilities.
In April 2022, Bina received bids from Novolen and WR Grace to provide technology for the proposed polypropylene facility, while Univation was the sole bidder for the 500,000 t/y High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) installations and the 650,000 t/y swing unit to yield HDPE and LLDPE. Bina received a single bid from Axens in July 2022 for the 50,000 t/y Butene-1 unit.
On May 17 (2023), the BPCL board approved the Rs49,000cr ($6.5bn) project, including the petrochemicals complex and refinery capacity expansion to 11m t/y. On September 14 (2023), Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the petrochemicals complex, raising hopes the cracker tender would be revived.
Apart from the ethylene cracker, the proposed Bina petchem project will have a C4 (Butane) hydrogenation unit, a pyrolysis gasoline hydrogenation facility, a benzene-toluene-xylene extraction and separation facility, a raw C4 (butane) olefins hydrogenation facility; and a refinery off-gas treatment section.