Reliance Industries will set up India’s first and one of the world’s largest carbon fibre plants in Hazira, Gujarat, the company chairman Mukesh D Ambani said at the annual shareholder meeting on August 29.
In a live-streamed address, he said that the carbon fibre plant will be built in phases and will ultimately have a capacity of 20,000 million metric tonnes per annum. It is slated to become a “multi-decade growth engine for RIL’s O2C (oil to chemical) business”.
Carbon fibre is a strong, stiff but lightweight material with high conductivity that has the potential to replace steel in specialised uses in aerospace, civil engineering, military and motorsports.
The Hazira plant will be built to use acrylonitrile feedstock, Ambani said. Production of acrylonitrile - an organic carbon compound used to manufacture plastics, synthetic rubber and carbon fibre - will begin in 2023.
The first phase of the carbon fibre plant will be completed in 2025.
Ambani also said that once the carbon fibre factory is in production, RIL will integrate its composites business to produce carbon fibre composites, which will be used as a replacement metal for lightweight requirements in renewable energy and mobility.
Ambani also said that RIL will continue to recycle polyesters and plastics, double its PET bottle recycling capacity to 5 billion bottles a year and develop pathways to produce biodegradable and compostable plastics to replace single-use plastics.
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