GAIL evinces interest in acquiring stake in HPL

14-Nov-11

Indian PSU GAIL India has expressed an interest to the West Bengal government to acquire an equity partnership in a downstream project Haldia Petrochemicals (HPL). A Rs 4,000 crore investment plan in eight different projects was announced by The Chatterjee Group (TCG) chairman. This investment outlay will be made over 36-40 months and will include butine-1, ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM), styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and maleic anhydride. TCG had announced interest in a private equity (PE) partners at a debt equity ratio of 1.5:1. In a bid to overcome financial crisis being faced by HPL, the company made a decision last month to go ahead with two chemical downstream projects. Plans were underway to float a request for proposal from global majors for butiene-1 project at an investment of Rs 200 crore. HPL is also scouting for international investors for a Rs 1,000 crore synthetic rubber manufacturing plant.