Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) made the first shipment of around 500 tonnes of polypropylene product under the brand name ‘Mangpol’ from its newly commissioned polypropylene plant on Thursday. The company began commercial production of the product on June 18.

Addressing presspersons after the launch of the product in the domestic market, H Kumar, Managing Director of MRPL, said that the company is expecting a top-line growth of ₹3,000 crore to ₹4,000 crore per annum with the launch of this product.

“Polypropylene should add $1 to $1.5 a barrel across the spectrum on the bottom-line basis. This bottom-line growth will help improve the margins of the company,” he said.

The company has a capacity to produce 4.4 lakh tonnes of polypropylene a year.

The feedstock for the polypropylene plant – polymer-grade propylene -- is being produced from upstream petrochemical fluidised catalytic cracking unit of the refinery.

Asked about the uses of polypropylene, Venkatesh M, Director (Refinery) of MRPL, said that automobile sector is one of the major users of polypropylene. The product is used in the manufacture of plastic and of various types of moulds.

Kumar said that the country has a polypropylene production capacity of around 2-2.5 million tonnes on an average. There is a demand for around 5 lakh tonnes of polypropylene in the southern India market, and the company will be able to meet that demand.

Around 400 customers have already been lined up for the product now, he said.

Earlier in the day, Prahlad Joshi, Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Oil and Natural Gas, had launched the first shipment of polypropylene in the domestic market.

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