India’s Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) plant capacity is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3% from 0.970 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in 2017 to 2.252 mtpa in 2022, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The company’s report: ‘Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Industry Outlook in India to 2022 – Market Size, Company Share, Price Trends, Capacity Forecasts of All Active and Planned Plants’ reveals that three upcoming projects, Reliance Industries Dahej Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Plant 2, Reliance Industries Dahej Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Plant 1 and Reliance Industries Vadodara Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Plant with a capacity of 1.200 mtpa, 0.046 mtpa and 0.036 mtpa, respectively are expected to commence their production by 2022.

The largest VCM plants in India in 2017 were Reliance Industries Dahej Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Plant 1, Reliance Industries Hazira Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Plant, Finolex Industries Ratnagiri Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Plant 1, Finolex Industries Ratnagiri Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Plant 2 and Chemplast Sanmar Mettur Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Plant.

Dayanand Kharade, Oil & Gas Analyst at GlobalData, explains: “The downstream PVC capacity additions coming on stream in the mid-term will drive more demand, prompting expansion of VCM capacity in the country.”

IMAGE FOR PUBLICATION – Please click this link for the chart: ‘Total Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) Plant Capacity in India, mtpa, 2008-2022’

Reliance Industries Ltd, Finolex Industries Ltd and The Sanmar Group together accounted for 100% of the VCM capacity in India in 2017.

The main sector that consumes VCM in India is Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC). In 2017, this sector accounted for almost 97.7% of the VCM demand in the country.

The average price of VCM in India is expected to increase at a CAGR of 2.2% from $658.0/tonnes in 2017 to $732.7/tonnes in 2022.

Between 2008 and 2017, India had been a net importer of VCM. According to GlobalData, it is expected to continue on similar trend with imports being higher than exports until 2022.

Imports as percentage of demand in the year 2008 was 11.3%. GlobalData forecasts imports as percentage of demand to decrease from 36.7% in 2017 to 20.7% in 2022.