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L&T SIGNS MOU FOR BUILDING CO2 TO METHANOL PLANT FOR NTPC
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The plant will comprise of three subunits namely CO2 capture from Flue Gas, H2 production by electrolysis of water and catalytic conversion of CO2 & H2 to Methanol.
L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering (LTHE), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro (L&T), has signed a memorandum of understanding with NTPC Ltd., a Maharatna PSU on 19th August 2020, wherein LTHE shall be the Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management partner to build CO2 to Methanol demonstration Plant in NTPC Power Station.
MoU was signed by Subramanian Sarma, Whole Time Director and Senior Executive Vice President (Energy) and Ujjwal Kanti Bhattacharya, ED (Projects), NTPC Ltd. in presence of C K Mondol, Director (Commercial), NTPC Ltd. and other senior officials from L&T and NTPC Ltd.
This plant will comprise of three sub-units namely CO2 capture from Flue Gas, H2 production by electrolysis of water and catalytic conversion of CO2 & H2 to Methanol.
Under this MOU, LTHE and NTPC will further collaborate to accelerate the development and subsequently commercialize CO2 to Methanol plants.
Subramanian Sarma said, “We are delighted to be a part of this initiative of NTPC in the field of clean energy. This development towards establishing CO2 to Methanol plants is an important step towards India’s commitment to combat climate change. LTHE, together with NTPC, will leverage its vast experience in engineering, construction and project management to successfully deliver this demonstration project”.
Organized under Offshore, Onshore, Construction Services, Modular Fabrication and AdVENT (Advanced Value Engineering & Technology) verticals, LTHE delivers ‘design to build’ engineering and construction solutions across the hydrocarbon spectrum.
ICT TOPS ATAL INNOVATION RANKINGS IN “STATE GOVERNMENT-AIDED UNIVERSITY” CATEGORY
The Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai has been ranked first in the category of ‘State Government funded Universities’ in the ‘Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements’ (ARIIA) 2020’.
The Atal rankings 2020 were announced during a virtual function on August 18. IIT-Madras emerged as the best institute under the Institute of National Importance category.
ARIIA is an initiative by the Ministry of Education (MoE), which is implemented by AICTE and Ministry’s Innovation Cell. The objective of ARIIA 2020 is to rank higher education institutions and universities in India as per innovation, entrepreneurship, startup, and development amongst faculty and students. The 2020 rankings were for six categories – centrally funded institutions, state-funded univer-sities, statefunded autonomous institutions, private/deemed universities, private institutions and women only higher educational institutions.
CHEMICAL PROCESS PIPING BAGS ORDERS WORTH AROUND RS. 30-CRORE DURING LOCKDOWN
Mumbai-based industrial piping solutions company, Chemical Process Piping (CPP), has bagged combined large orders worth around Rs. 30-crore ($4-mn) from renowned engineering procurement and construction (EPC) companies for critical chemical piping and spray headers/piping for flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) plants in India.
CPP will supply chemical piping solutions to Tata Chemicals, GACL and Nirma, while the spray headers/ piping for FGD plants will be supplied
to L&T, among other firms. The company claimed it has bagged over 80% of the orders for spray headers and piping for projects across India during the COVID-19 pandemic.
CPP said it had managed to restart operations and bag these orders at a time when industries in India were struggling to restart manufacturing activities. “During unlock-down 1, CPP could restart operations rapidly and the workforce strength reached up to 90% of its original strength. This enabled the company to start operations to meet the market needs. The operations started slow since the new SOPs and rules had to be followed. The workforce number reached 100% capacity by the end July 2020,” informed Mr. Vijay Rajpurohit, Managing Director, CPP.
ZUARI AGRO RESUMES FERTILIZER PLANT OPERATIONS
Zuari Agro Chemicals Ltd announced it had earlier shutdown the NPK – A (fertilizer) plant due to Covid-19 pandemic in the industrial belt around the plant in Goa, India.
Non-availability of manpower had adversely affected the operations due to which the plant had to be shut down for more than a month. In view of Covid-19 situation improvement in the area, the plant has resumed production effective 17 August.
The plant is expected to operate until the production of around 50,000 MT of complex fertilisers, said the company in its filing to the exchanges. Also Zuari Agro
INDIA LEVIES ANTI-DUMPING DUTY ON PHOSPHORIC ACID FROM KOREA FOR FIVE YEARS
India on Friday imposed anti-dumping duty on phosphoric acid from Korea for five years with a view to guard domestic manufacturers from cheap imports. The duty was imposed after the Commerce Ministry’s investigation arm Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) concluded in its probe that continued dumping of ‘phosphoric acid of all grades and concentrations (excluding agriculture or fertilizer grade)’ from Korea was impacting the domestic industry.
“The anti-dumping duty ($137 per metric tonne) imposed under this notification shall be effective for a period of five years (unless revoked, superseded or amended earlier) from the date of publication of this notification...and shall be paid in Indian currency,” the department of revenue said in a notification.
In international trade parlance, dumping happens when a country or a firm exports an item at a price lower than the price of that product in its domestic market.
Dumping impacts price of that product in the importing country, hitting margins and profits of manufacturing firms.
According to global trade norms, a country is allowed to impose tariffs on such dumped products to provide a level-playing field to domestic manufacturers. The duty is imposed only after a thorough investigation by a quasi-judicial body, such as DGTR, in India.
Imposition of anti-dumping duty is permissible under the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime.
Korea is a key trading partner of India.
The duty is aimed at ensuring fair trading practices and creating a level
playing field for domestic producers vis-a-vis foreign producers and exporters.
Chemicals, the agriculture vertical of the Adventz Group, had said earlier that it had decided to sell off the Goa fertilizer plant to unlisted joint venture company Paradeep Phosphates Ltd (PPL) for a total consideration of $280 million (about Rs 2135.06 crore).
AUSTRALIA-INDIA-JAPAN MINISTERS’ MEETING ON SUPPLY CHAINS RESILIENCE HELD; MINISTERS SUPPORT FREE, FAIR, INCLUSIVE, NON-DISCRIMINATORY, TRANSPARENT, AND STABLE TRADE AND INVESTMENT ENVIRONMENT
India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal, Australia’s Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Senator Mr Simon Birmingham, and Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Mr Kajiyama Hiroshi held a ministerial videoconference today.
The Ministers reaffirmed their determination to take a lead in delivering a free, fair, inclusive, non-discriminatory, transparent, predictable and stable trade and investment environment and in keeping their markets open. In light of the COVID-19 crisis and the recent global-scale changes in the economic and technological landscape, the Ministers underscored the necessity and potential to enhance the resiliency of supply chains in the Indo-Pacific region.
Recognizing the pressing need for regional cooperation on supply chain resilience in the Indo- Pacific, the Ministers shared their intention to work toward the launch of a new initiative to achieve the objective through cooperation. They instructed their officials to promptly work out the details of the new initiative
for its launch later this year. The Ministers noted the important role of business and academia in realizing the objective. The Ministers called for other countries in the region, which share the afore-mentioned views, to participate in the initiative.
“India wholeheartedly endorses the concept of working towards ensuring a trustworthy, dependable and reliable supply chain in the Indo-Pacific region; Role played by India during the COVID crisis with the supply of critical medical products indicates India’s credibility and reliability as a partner” - Shri Piyush Goyal
Addressing the Trilateral meeting, Shri Piyush Goyal said that the initiative could not have come at a more opportune time in the post COVID scenario when there is a likelihood of rechurning of supply chains in the Indo-Pacific region and it is incumbent upon us to take the initiative. He said that in May 2020, Hon’ble Prime Minister of India had stressed that it is the need of the hour that India should play a big role in the supply chains.
On the initiative itself, Shri Goyal
said “India wholeheartedly endorses the broad concept of working towards ensuring a trustworthy, dependable and reliable supply chain in the Indo-Pacific region. The diversification of supply chain is critical for managing the risks associated with supply of inputs including disciplining price volatility. We could provide the core pathway for linking value chains in the region by creating a network of reliable long term supplies and appropriate capacities.”
The Minister said that the initiative also dwells on improving the competitiveness of sectors. “For this, we may need to identify the manufacturing and services sectors which contribute most to the domestic value addition in the region. We support the need for specific activities listed for enhancing the resilience of the supply chains which include those related to promotion and facilitating trade and investment as well as diversification of production base.” He said that the digitization of trade procedures is a very important step for facilitating trade and thereby maintaining resilience in supply chains. This was clearly exemplified during the COVID crisis when many of the regulatory agencies were not functioning physically. “It is important that all of us maintain this
momentum on facilitation through adoption of electronic documents, commensurate with our capacities,” he added.
In terms of participation by interested countries, Shri Goyal said that it is important that we look at countries with similar line of thinking in terms of being reliable and dependable suppliers for ensuring resiliency in the supply chains of the region. Some of the other key parameters that could be looked at are the market oriented policies, demography, growth potential, fiscal state of play including existing debt burdens and geo-political strategy.
Describing Australia, India and Japan as crucial players in the region, Shri Goyal said that during 2019, the cumulative GDP was $ 9.3 trillion while cumulative merchandise goods and services trade were $ 2.7 trillion and $0.9 trillion respectively. “With such a strong baseline, it is important that we use this opportunity to work towards enhancing the share of our trade and investment in the region”, the Minister said.
Stressing on the need to expand trade between these countries, Shri Goyal however pointed out that with Japan, it is seen that in many specific products, despite our global exports and Japanese global imports being high with zero preferential tariffs, the procurement from India was limited. This cuts across many sectors such as steel, marine products, processed agriculture, agro-chemicals, plastics, carpets, clothing, footwear etc. He expressed the hope that the proposed initiative must clearly try to bridge this and work towards enhancing mutual trade.
Talking about India’s economic expansion being now premised on the policy of being Atmanirbhar or self- reliant, Shri Goyal said that the policy seeks to make India economically stronger with enhanced capacities ensuring resiliency of supply chains. He said that India, in its tradition of treating the world as a family, played a crucial role during the COVID crisis with the export measures for supply of critical medical products put in place only to ensure equitable distribution. “All these measures indicate our credibility and reliability as a partner and I am sure this is an important parameter as we venture into this new initiative for ensuring resiliency of supply chains. Transparency and trust have to be the hallmark of our initiative if we seek to expand its footprint. We firmly believe that Australia and Japan are key partners for us in our joint endeavor”, Shri Goyal said.
CENTRE FOR BIOPHARMA ANALYSIS SET UP IN PUNE
A Centre for Biopharma Analysis (CBA) for providing high-quality analytical services for biopharmaceutical developers and manufacturers has become operational in Pune. The centre, supported by the National Biopharma Mission (NBM) of Department of Bio-technology (DBT) – Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) at Pune-based technology business incubator, Venture Centre, was inaugurated virtually by Dr. Renu Swarup, Secretary, DBT.
The Venture Centre – a CSIR initiative – is a Section 25 company hosted by the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. Venture Centre strives to nucleate and nurture technology and knowledge-based enterprises by leveraging the scientific and engineering competencies of the institutions in Pune. The CBA is envisioned to become a resource centre for structural and functional characterization of biologicals and biopharmaceuticals.
Dr. Swarup said she expects the CBA to play a pivotal role in supporting biopharma innovations from academic and government research labs, start-ups and many Indian companies with not only high-quality analytical characterisation, but also advise on studies needed for regulatory approvals. This can help speed up the development process.
Prof. A.K. Nangia, Director, CSIR-NCL, highlighted how NCL is keen to contribute to the large molecule therapeutics revolution waiting to happen in India as it did for small molecule therapeutics in 1970-80s.
Mr. Prasanta Biswal, CEO, International Biotech Park Ltd. (IBPL), Pune said IBPL is happy to have contributed CSR support for the CBA infrastructure development.
Member-Signatories to Responsible Care
1. Aarti Industries Ltd. 2. Aditya Birla Chemicals India Ltd. 3. Aditya Bulk Carriers 4. Akzo Nobel Chemicals (I) Ltd. 5. Alkyl Amines Chemicals Ltd. 6. Amines & Plasticizers Ltd. 7. Anshul Specialty Molecules Ltd. 8. Anupam Rasayan India Ltd. 9. Apcotex Industries Ltd. 10. Aquapharm Chemicals Pvt. Ltd. 11. ARCL Organics Ltd. 12. Ascu Arch Timber Protection Ltd. 13. Asg Biochem Pvt. Ltd. 14. Asha Penn Color Pvt. Ltd. 15. Ashok Chem-Pharma International Ltd. 16. Astec Lifesciences Ltd. 17. Atul Limited 18. Auchtel Products Ltd. 19. Balaji Amines Ltd. 20. BASF India Ltd. 21. Bayer Crop Science Ltd. 22. Bayer Vapi Pvt. Ltd. 23. Bengal Chemicals & Pharm. Ltd. 24. Best Value Chem Pvt. Ltd. 25. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. 26. Bharuch Enviro Infrastructure Ltd. 27. Brenntag Ingredients (India) Pvt. Ltd. 28. Cabot Sanmar Ltd. 29. Cardolite Specialty Chemicals India LLP 30. Century Rayon 31. Chemfab Alkalis Ltd. 32. Chemplast Cuddalore Vinyls Ltd. 33. Chemplast Sanmar Ltd. 34. Chemstar Organics (India) Ltd. 35. Clariant Chemicals (India) Ltd. 36. Colourtex Industries Pvt. Ltd. 37. Connell Bros Co. (I) Pvt. Ltd. 38. Coromandel International Ltd. 39. Covestro (India) Pvt. Ltd. 40. CRL Terminals Pvt. Ltd. 41. Dai-ichi Karkaria Ltd. 42. DCM Shriram Limited 43. Deccan Fine Chemicals India Pvt. Ltd. 44. Deepak Fert. & Petrochemicals Corpn. Ltd. 45. Deepak Nitrite Ltd. 46. Deepak Novochem Technologies Ltd. 47. The Dharamsi Morarji Chemical Co. Ltd. 48. Diamines & Chemicals Ltd. 49. DIC India Ltd. 50. Dishman Carbogen Amics Ltd. 51. Dorf Ketal Chemicals (I) Pvt Ltd. 52. Dow Agrosciences India Pvt. Ltd. 53. Dow Chemical International Pvt. Ltd. 54. East India Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. 55. E. I. Dupont India Pvt. Ltd. 56. Elantas Beck India Ltd. 57. Epsilon Carbon Pvt. Ltd. 58. Excel Industries Ltd. 59. Farmson Pharmaceuticals Gujarat Pvt. Ltd. 60. Galaxy Surfactants Ltd. 61. Ganesh Polychem Ltd. 62. GE Betz India Pvt. Ltd. 63. GHCL Limited 64. Godavari Biorefineries Ltd. 65. Godrej Industries Ltd. 66. Grasim Industries Ltd. 67. Grasim Industries Ltd., Chemical Division Ganjam 68. Gujarat Alkalies & Chemicals Ltd. 69. Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd. 70. Gujarat Organics Ltd. 71. Gujarat State Fertilisers & Chemicals Ltd. 72. Gulbrandsen Chemicals Pvt. Ltd. 73. Gulbrandsen Technologies (India) Pvt. Ltd. 74. Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd.
