Chemical Industries in India have a vital role, and the economy covers over 80,000 commercial products. There is extreme diversification in the chemical industry in India. It broadly features in agrochemicals, specialty chemicals, bulk chemicals, polymers, petrochemicals, and fertilizers.
Chemical Industry Global Position
India ranks fourth position in agrochemicals. It comes after the US, Japan, and China. It accounts for the dye intermediates and dyestuffs world production. The industry of Indian colorants industry has around 15% global market share. The chemicals industry has a strong position in chemicals imports and exports, ranking 8t and 14th at the global level.
In FY22, the chemical, small and medium domestic sectors expect 18-24% revenue. The improvement is due to the chemical's high prices and domestic demand increase. The proximity of India to the Middle East, the petrochemicals feedstock source, enables benefiting the scale of economies.
Recent developments and investments
Chemical manufacturing has come up with new developments and investments showing the growth of the Indian chemical sector. They are:
- Increase of organic and inorganic chemicals export is 38.67% from April 2021 - March 2022, reaching US$ 24,313.88 million.
- In June 2022, chemical production is 920,628 MT, petrochemical production is 1,711, 281 MT. The other chemicals production levels are as Liquid Chlorine: 202,467 MT, Pesticides and Insecticides: 18,327 MT, Caustic Soda: 281,778 MT, Soda Ash: 274,597 MT, and Formaldehyde: 24,998 MT.
- IOCL, in Nov 2021, plans to invest Rs 3681 crore to set up the first mega-scale in India of maleic anhydride for high-value manufacturing specialty chemicals in Haryana at its Panipat Refinery.
- Indian Oil Corporation and Praj Industries Ltd November 2021, came into a MoU (memorandum of understanding) to explore the production opportunities of alcohol-to-jet fuels, compressed bio-gas, ethanol 1&2G, and related biofuels industry opportunities.
- Mr. Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister, on September 30, 2021, inaugurated at Jaipur the Institute of Petrochemicals Technology.
- BPCL (Bharat Petroleum, Corporation), in September 2021, announced an investment of US$4.05 billion to refine efficiencies and promote petrochemical capacity.
- Rosneft, Russia, in October 2021, launched a petrochemical large-scale production program for development in India with ~US$ 750 million worth of investments at the implemented current stage.
- Nayara Energy, in October 2021, expects around 15-20 new petrochemical-integrated plants within the next decade to become operational. It wishes to fulfill the clothing and plastic industries' raw materials rising demand.
- Coromandel International, in November 2021, announces the setting up of a sulphuric acid plant of 1650 MT/day in the Vishakhapatnam fertilizer complex with Rs. 400 crore investments.
- NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd signed an MoU with Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd in July 2022 to establish the participation of the commercial-scale of Green Methanol and Ammonia plants for the first time in India.
