Inox Air Products, one of the largest manufacturers of industrial and medical gases in India, said that its proposed plant at Hosur will produce liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen and liquid argon and will be commissioned and operational in December 2022.
“The commissioning of this plant would augment our liquid medical oxygen production capacity by 50%,” Siddharth Jain – director, INOX Air Products said. With an investment of ₹150 crore, the Hosur plant will be identical to the Sriperumbudur plant which is currently producing 200 TPD of liquid gases.
The Sriperumbudur facility is the largest medical oxygen manufacturing unit in the State with supplies going to 122 hospitals across the region. From a pre-Covid daily medical oxygen supply average of 70 tonnes per day in February 2020, it scaled up to a daily average of 180 tonnes per day in April 2021 and in May, its capacity reached 149 tonnes per day. “The Tamil Nadu market holds vital significance to us. So far, we have invested more than ₹215 crore in the State,” Mr.Jain said.
According to him, all states should increase medical oxygen storage capacity. He explained that with the increased number of Covid-19 cases, every hospital increased the number of beds and ventilators, while the infrastructure to handle medical oxygen remained limited.
“Due to the storage constraints, the frequency of filling of storage tanks at hospitals increased from once in 4 days in pre-Covid days to once in eight hours. This sudden increase in demand had put an unprecedented stress on the entire manufacturing and distribution team at our plant.” He pointed out that all State governments must work towards strengthening the supply chain and storage.
At the national-level, the company has laid out expansion plans worth ₹2,000 crore to build eight air separation units which will be commissioned during the course of financial year 2022 to 2024. These units will be strategically located in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.
With a combined capacity to manufacture more than 1,500 tonnes per day (TPD) of liquid gases, the expansion will take the firm’s total liquid gases production to 4,800 TPD by 2024. “Our capacity is 3,300 TPD. With this expansion plan, we will add 1,500 TPD of capacity out of which 1,000 TPD will be liquid medical oxygen,” Mr. Jain said.
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