The Sanmar group, which has established a huge chemicals complex in Port Said, Egypt, TCI Sanmar Chemicals SAE, plans to invest an additional $150 million in phase two of the project. This will involve setting up a new PVC plant with a capacity of two lakh tonnes and will also enhance its ethylene manufacturing capacity by 60,000 tonnes. After this round, the total investment will be $1.3 billion (approximately ₹7,800 crore), says a press release from the company.

Sanmar had acquired Trust Chemicals Industries in March 2007 and renamed it as TCI Sanmar Chemicals. In the first phase, its plan was to manufacture 2.75 lakh tonnescaustic soda, 60,000 tonnes of green ethylene from ethanol and two lakh tonnes PVC in a year. TCI Sanmar employs about 2,000 Egyptians directly and indirectly.

Operating capacity

“The caustic soda plant is operating at around 90 per cent capacity while the PVC plant is operating at around 60 per cent capacity and will reach 100 per cent by March 15 when a new drier would have been commissioned. The Phase-II expansion work involving setting up another PVC plant of two lakh tonnes capacity (thus taking the total capacity to four lakh tonnes) and enhancing the ethanol to ethylene capacity to 1.2 lakh tonnes would involve an investment of $150 million. We will start implementation of Phase-II after achieving financial closure for which we are working,” said PS Jayaraman, Chairman, TCI Sanmar.

Recently, the Prime Minister of Egypt, Ibrahim Mehleb visited the plant along with Navdeep Suri, Indian Ambassador, and praised the scale of the Indian manufacturing facilities in Egypt, said the company. Sanmar’s is the largest Indian investment in the country. The Prime Minister toured the premises, and received a briefing on the nature of the project, its contribution to the Egyptian economy and challenges to its growth. Indian investments in Egypt amount to more than $2.5 billion across 50 different companies.

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