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MORE PLANS IN STORE: The IOC Chairman, Mr Sarthak Behuria, after a meeting with the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, at Writers Building in Kolkata on Saturday. — Sushanta Patronobish

Kolkata , Nov. 19

INDIAN Oil Corporation (IOC) on Saturday discussed prospective investment opportunities in upstream and downstream petrochemicals sector at Haldia in West Bengal.

The company had previously offered to invest Rs 5,000 crore in Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) provided it acquired a stake in HPL. The proposal is now hanging in the balance.

The company is also planning capacity expansion of six-million-tonne Haldia refinery.

The State Government has arranged for close to 105 acres of land adjacent to the existing refinery. The land belongs to the closed facility of Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation.

The IOC Chairman, Mr Sarthak Behuria, the company Secretary, Mr R. Narayanan, along with other senior officials of the company, on Saturday met the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The State Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Nirupam Sen, the Finance Minister, Mr Asim Dasgupta, and some senior officials were present.

Mr Behuria told presspersons that long-term investment prospects and fiscal concessions available in Haldia were discussed. He, however, denied having discussed any specific investment plan and described today's meeting as a combination of a courtesy call and broad-based discussions. Mr Sen later said IOC was one of the first few companies which had responded to the State Government's request for investment in petrochemicals sector.

Senior officials said the State Government had proposed to the IOC to go ahead with its investment plans in such a way that they should not be dependent on acquisition of a stake in HPL.

"We are determined to attract investment in the chemicals and petrochemicals sector in Haldia. To do so, we have to attract the oil PSUs especially IOC. It had previously proposed Rs 5,000-crore investment for setting up butadiene, parazylene, a greenfield condensate refinery and so on. While we are still hopeful on HPL issues, for the time being we have requested IOC to go ahead with parts of its plans which may not be directly related to HPL," a senior official said.

When asked about an out-of-court settlement with The Chatterjee Group on HPL, Mr Sen said TCG had sought an appointment with the State Government.

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