OREANDA-NEWS. India's ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals (OMPL) will offer later this month paraxylene (PX) and benzene in a tender for November and December loading, before considering a new marketing strategy for next year.

The company adopted in June a shorter term aromatics sales strategy in response to volatility in the energy and petrochemical markets.

OMPL had previously sold 150,000t of PX for July-September loading to trading firms Marubeni, TrammoChem and PTT Trading at a $40/t discount to 100pc cfr quotes on a fob New Mangalore basis. The company also sold 45,000t of benzene to PTT Trading and Integra at an $18/t discount to fob quotes.

OMPL is on track to shut its aromatics plant in west India's Karnataka state for a scheduled three-week maintenance shutdown from the end of September. It can produce up to 920,000 t/yr of PX and 283,000 t/yr of benzene.