The Anti-CAA protests, followed by the Covid-19 lockdown pushed the Assam Petro-Chemicals Limited (APL) in Namrup in Dibrugarh district to incur a loss of Rs 10.08 crores in the 2019-20 financial year. Addressing the media on Saturday, APL chairman Bikul Deka said, “The anti-CAA protests and Covid-19 lockdown affected our industry in a big way and we had to incur a huge loss of Rs 10.08 crores in 2019-20.”

Chairman also informed that APL’s 500 TPD (tonne per day) Methanol at a cost of Rs 1709 crore and 200 TPD Formaldehyde plant coming up in Namrup will be commissioned in January next year. “We have continued work in our project site during the lockdown period by maintaining all Covid-19,” he said. Chairman revealed the project upon completion will fulfill 30% of the country’s methanol requirement, which now stands at around 5-6 lakh tonnes. 

APL, which is the only gas-based-methanol producing plant in the state will complete 50 years in 2021. “We also plan to import the products to Bhutan and Nepal apart from our North India market,” the APL chairman said. “We are also eyeing the Bangladesh market, to which we catered to earlier, but had to stop due to some government regulations,” he said. The company is looking to exploit the demand in the M-fuel (methanol fuel) sector. 

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