MATERIALS / RECYCLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 24 No. 01+02/23 www.petpla.net 14 A conversation with India’s largest private company PET raw material and recyclate from India by Kay Barton December 9, 2022 Reliance Industries Ltd. We met: Mr Bharat B Mehta, Vice President – PET Marketing Mr Rakesh Bali, Senior Vice President, Head Marketing (Petchem) Mr Raghunath Datar, Regional Manager Mr Rajiv Kumar, AVP – PET Marketing Mr Aditya Pahurkar, Manager Sales & Marketing (PET) Mr Shubhang Shanbag, Manager Sales & Marketing (PET) Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is the largest private sector company in India. Founded in 1966, the corporate giant today houses Petchem (petrochemicals), Jio (telecom), Retail (around 15,000 retail outlets), Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production and Refining (petroleum). As of year-end 2022, Reliance became the first Indian company ever to achieve a turnover of more than US$ 100 billion. Petchem business, which includes the plastics division, accounts for about 35% of total sales. In addition to its PET brand “Relpet”, Reliance also produces PP, PE and PVC. The PET material production division, the company points out, is fully integrated thanks to its refining division, as everything from crude oil to finished PET production is carried out under one corporate umbrella. In Mumbai, PETplanet met the Reliance team to discuss the company’s current and future developments in PET. PET material production The meeting point for our discussion was a meeting room at the Reliance Jio Infocomm site in Mumbai’s financial and business district BKC. There, the team led by Senior Vice President & Head of Marketing at Petchem, Mr Rakesh Bali and Vice President for PET Marketing, Bharat B Mehta welcomed us. Mr Mehta began by explaining where the company is headed in the future in terms of PET manufacturing and postconsumer PET bottle recycling: “We currently have a total capacity of manufacturing 1.15 million t/a of virgin food grade PET. The capacity is spread in India and Malaysia, with Indian manufacturing plants in Hazira, Surat which has 350 kt capacity and Dahej, Bharuch with 650 kt. The remaining 150 kt is produced at our plant in Malaysia.” RIL also produces 6 kt/a of food grade rPET under its brand “Relpet green” at Nagothane facility. This puts the company in first place in India for PET production, followed by IVL Dhunseri with 720 kt and JBF with just over 180 kt. A unique pilot project of rPET resin, which is to be commercialised in the later part of 2023, is currently in the test phase: it involves traceability of PET material via integrated markers in finished blown bottles for the purpose of tracking material flows. Bottle and material demand Currently, about 1.2 million tonnes of PET bottles are consumed in a year across India and are expected to grow by 20% by the end of 2022, according to Reliance. Commenting on this, Bharat Mehta said, “Glass prices have gone up by 60% due to which many bottlers have switched to PET bottles, especially in CSD, milk and liquor.” The increasing demand for material is due to the continuing trend towards smaller bottle sizes due to “shrinkflation”, which refers to shrinking the size of the pack to keep the product affordable in times of inflation. He added: “A 2 l bottle uses 54 g of material whereas eight 0.25 l bottles each use 10 g of material, a total of 80 g which results in 26 g more usage.” Post-consumer waste, PET recycling and EPR Things are also happening in the recycling sector. “For PET recycling, we maintain three sites in the states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and MATERIALS / RECYCLING F.l.t.r.: Rakesh Bali, Raghunat Datar, Kay Barton, Bharat B Mehta and Rajiv Kumar Bharat B Metha displays a PET promotional bottle showing the various stages from PET bottle flakes to the company’s “R-Elan” textile yarn
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