DIBRUGARH, Oct 24 - The Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited (BCPL) has reportedly incurred huge losses due to sudden halt in its production for almost a month.
Inside sources said that the plant was shut down in the third week of September, 2017. The losses could be around rupees hundred crores, the sources told The Assam Tribune. However, it is gathered that no one has been made accountable for the losses so far.
However, the BCPL management in a statement said that petrochemical plants are usually designed to operate 335 days in a year with a window of 30 days in a year for planned shutdown jobs. Accordingly, annual shutdown was planned to be taken during the month of March, 2018. However, plant shutdown was preponed and short shutdown of BCPL complex was taken to attend certain critical maintenance activities which were affecting efficient operation of the plant and also to improve operational reliability. Various shutdown activities are now over. Plants are under start-up and it is expected that production will resume within a day or two,� the statement stated.
Sources told this Correspondent that the production had to be halted due to some technical hitch in the LLDP reactor. Several people have found it difficult to subscribe to the story of the BCPL management. What is surprising is the fact that the stakeholders of the mega petro-chemical project were kept in the dark. The stakeholders including the media was not aware about the plant shut down for such a long period.