‘Coal gasification can be used to supply petrochem feedstock’

India should explore using coal gasification as feedstock to produce chemicals and petrochemicals in order to increase <g data-gr-id="15">domestic</g> output of these energy products, a top official said on Tuesday.

"In last decade or so, the demand of petrochemicals has gone up substantially and unfortunately, this has led to increase in imports, as domestic output is lagging due to limited availability of feedstock like gas and oil," Chemicals Secretary Surjit Chaudhary said at a conference here.

He was speaking at the symposium on ‘Potential of Coal Gasification in India’ organised by FICCI, jointly with the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals. The Secretary added that China has taken advantage of that as it is now supplying much of these chemicals to our country using coal gasification technology.