West Bengal assures IOC land for long-delayed Haldia petrochemical expansion

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has assured Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) that the state will help secure land for its long-pending plan to build a petrochemical complex next to its Haldia refinery.

The expansion requires about 175 acres. Adhikari said on Monday that the Haldia Development Authority has already arranged 85 acres, and the remaining land could be facilitated through the Haldia Dock Complex of Syama Prasad Mookherjee Port. He said he has taken up the matter with the port authorities to ensure the parcel is made available to IOC.

An official said that if the land comes through, IOC will send the project to its board for consideration.

The state-owned refiner has said it is considering an expansion at Haldia that could include a chemical downstream project. It has sought the 175-acre parcel adjoining the refinery for years to develop downstream petrochemical facilities.

In 2023, an IOC official said the company wanted a petrochemical complex contiguous to the Haldia refinery, arguing that a standalone refinery was not sustainable on profitability grounds and needed to be supplemented by petrochemicals. The company has said it wants to replicate at Haldia the model followed at its Paradip refinery, where a large petrochemical ecosystem has been built around the refinery.

Land availability has been a longstanding constraint on expansion at Haldia. In 2021, then Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan wrote to the ministers of chemicals and fertilisers, and shipping, seeking their intervention to make available around 175 acres held by Hindustan Fertilisers Corporation Ltd.

IOC has also flagged the difficulty of expanding the refinery because it is bounded by the Hooghly river and by railway lines, canals and roads, leaving the HFCL land on the eastern side as the key contiguous parcel available.

The Haldia refinery was commissioned in 1975 with an initial capacity of 2.5 million tonnes per annum. It has since been expanded to nearly 9 million tonnes per annum and now produces fuels, lubricants and speciality products. IOC's official profile says the refinery commissioned its second catalytic iso-dewaxing unit in 2024, producing Group III lubricant base stocks.

The development comes as the West Bengal government is seeking to facilitate industrial projects by making land more readily available through mechanisms including direct purchase and land pooling.