Informist, Wednesday, May 12, 2021
By Sunil Raghu and Krishnadevan Vijayaraghavan
AHMEDABAD/MUMBAI – Reliance Industries Ltd is moving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from a petcoke gasification plant located at its Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat.
The conglomerate is installing a 90,000 tn-per-annum carbon dixoide recovery plant and a 4,000 tn-per-annum hydrogen gas generator at its 68.2 mln tn per annum refinery complex in Jamnagar, sources in know of the development told Informist.
The move is aimed at reducing the greenhouse gases generated by the company's petcoke gasification project, which converts the lowest cost fossil fuels--coal and coke–-into gas. RIL uses the gas generated for powering its refinery.
Petcoke gasification results in the emission of sulphur oxides and carbon dioxide. RIL runs the world's largest petcoke gasification project at Jamnagar.
RIL is expected to spend 51.50 bln rupees, or $680 mln, on installing these equipments to lower greenhouse gas emissions and also earn carbon credits. The capital outlay includes allocation for expanding capacity of some petrochemical products at Jamnagar.
Carbon credits are tradeable and income from the transfer of carbon credit is taxed at a lower rate of 10%.
"Similar technologies are already in use by refineries in countries as Norway but no one in India has brought in this technology as yet," a senior official with a leading global oil company said.
An email to RIL's spokesperson on this issue remained unanswered.
RIL is also learnt to be mulling options to transport the recovered carbon dioxide gas from the refinery through pipeline or in trucks to its oilfields to enhance oil recovery. Carbon dioxide is injected into the oil reservoir to reduce its viscosity, aiding flow and maintaining pressure in the reservoir so that it does not collapse.
This too, industry players say, is a proven technology. Global players like Shell and Total SA have come together to work on a project named Northern Lights that involves extracting carbon dioxide, transporting it in liquid form and even storing it.
As India is a signatory to the Paris agreement to tackle climate change, the government could start penalising greenhouse gas-emitting activities in the future.
RIL, which aims to be carbon-neutral by 2035, appears to have taken the lead in using an internal carbon price to guide decisions on managing carbon footprint in capital-intensive projects and be sustainable and profitable.
At 1141 IST, shares of RIL were trading nearly 1% lower at 1,916.80 rupees on the National Stock Exchange. End
US$1 = 73.45 rupees
IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT
Edited by Charumathi Sankaran
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