Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has successfully completed its Ethane Project, including commissioning of its ethane receipt and handling facilities and ethane cracking, at its Dahej Manufacturing Facility in Gujarat in a world record time of less than three years.

Reliance is the first company to globally conceptualize large-scale imports of ethane from North America as feedstock for its cracker portfolio in India. The project involved seamless integration of several elements across a complex infrastructure value chain.

This includes securing ethane refrigeration capacity in the US Gulf coast; delivery of dedicated Very Large Ethane Carriers (VLECs) to carry ethane from the US Gulf Coast to the West Coast of India; construction of ethane receipt and handling facilities; laying pipelines and upgrading crackers (to receive ethane) at Dahej, Hazira and Nagothane Manufacturing Facilities. The execution of this project at this scale and magnitude is a first in the world.

The Shale Gas industry in North America has grown exponentially in the past 5 years. Consequently ethane has become one of the most competitively priced feedstock for US crackers.

The supply of Ethane to its crackers at Dahej, Hazira and Nagothane will provide feedstock security and flexibility, enabling RIL to select the most optimal feed mix based on market conditions. This will improve the cost competitiveness of its existing crackers and enable us to optimize the portfolio in a volatile market environment.

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