India’s phenol plant capacity is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 60.2% from 0.074 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in 2017 to 0.782 mtpa in 2022, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The company’s report: ‘Phenol Industry Outlook in India to 2022 – Market Size, Company Share, Price Trends, Capacity Forecasts of All Active and Planned Plants’ reveals that four upcoming projects, Deepak Phenolics Dahej Phenol Plant, Haldia Petrochemicals Haldia Phenol Plant, Nayara Energy Vadinar Phenol Plant and GAIL (India) Bharuch Phenol Plant with a capacity of 0.200 mtpa, 0.200 mtpa, 0.200 mtpa and 0.108 mtpa, respectively are expected to commence their production by 2022.

The largest phenol plants in India in 2017 were ‘Hindustan Organic Chemicals Kochi Phenol Plant’ and ‘SI Group India Navi Mumbai Phenol Plant’.

Dayanand Kharade, Oil & Gas Analyst at GlobalData, explains: “To meet the country’s increasing demand from phenolic resins and to reduce the dependence on imports, the phenol industry in India is set to have large capacity additions.”

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Hindustan Organic Chemicals Ltd and SI Group-India Ltd together accounted for 100% of the phenol capacity in India in 2017.

The main sector that consumes phenol in India is Phenolic resins. In 2017, this sector accounted for almost 76.1% of the phenol demand in the country.

The average price of phenol in India is expected to increase at a CAGR of 3.0% from US$827.9/ton in 2017 to US$958.9/ton in 2022.

During 2008 to 2017, India has been a net importer of phenol. According to GlobalData forecast, imports as percentage of demand is expected to decrease from 88.3% in 2017 to 16.1% in 2022.