L&T to build melamine plant for GSFC

Gujarat State Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd has planned to build a new melamine plant in Gujarat that will see the company’s melamine producing capacity more than treble. L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering (LTHE), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro, has been mandated to build the plant on EPC basis for a contract value of Rs.650 crore. The diversified engineering conglomerate landed the contract through a global competitive bidding process.

Under the contract LTHE will carry out extended basis engineering, detailed engineering, procurement, supply, transportation, storage, fabrication, inspection, construction, installation, testing, mechanical completion, pre-commissioning and commissioning of the unit.

The plant with annual capacity of 40,000 tpa is coming up at Fertilizer Nagar at Vadodara in Gujarat. GSFC already has two melamine plants of 5,000 tpa and 10,000 tpa at the same location. GSFC, India’s only melamine producer, will have a total capacity of 55,000 tpa once the new plant is commissioned. GSFC markets its melamine as a pure chemical power under the GUJALAMINE trade name.

GSFC has appointed Swiss company Casale SA as the technology licensor for the project. It may be mentioned that Casale, a chemical engineering firm, acquired the high-pressure melamine process technology from Austria-headquartered Borealis in October 2013.

Melamine is a chemical made directly from urea, which finds application in high end plastic products such as molding compounds, decorative laminates, adhesives for the woodwork industry, coating resins, concrete plasticizers and resins for paper finishing. It is further learnt that off-gases generated in the melamine plant can be recycled back to the urea plant where they will be converted again into urea thus making a melamine plant perfectly integrated within a fertilizer complex.


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