Durgapur Chemicals Limited

About Us

Durgapur Chemicals Ltd. (DCL) was incorporated on 31st July 1963 as a public sector company wholly owned by the Government of West Bengal as part of an initiative to develop Durgapur as an industrial hub of West Bengal. DCL started commercial production of Phenol, phthalic anhydride, Monochloro Benzene, Pentachloro Phenol, Caustic Soda, Chlorine and Hydrochloric Acid in the year 1968.

The company was planned as a forward integration for another GoWB owned company, Durgapur Projects Limited (DPL), set up primarily to supply power, water, coke and coke oven gas to industrial units in the Durgapur area. It was envisaged that the company would utilize the benzene and naphthalene produced as by-products of DPL’s coke oven batteries to feed as raw material to our phenol and phthalic anhydride respectively.

The Phenol Plant due to technical problem in the high pressure compressors was stopped in the year 1983. The Phathalic anhydride plant also became technologically obsolescent over the time as xylene replaced naphthalene as feed for production through the development of process technology. The naphthalene based operations of the phathalic anhydride plant were discontinued in 1989. The Company continued its operation only with the production of Caustic Soda Plant, Monochloro Benzene, Di-chloro Benzene, Sodium Pentachloro Phenate.

DCL has its own township with more than 400 residential accommodations to all categories of employees spread in the area of 50 acres land & Factory area of 70 acres. The company set up value added product Stable Bleaching Powder (SBP) of 9000 MT / Annum capacity and Hydrogen Bottling plant in the year 1999.

In the year 2001, Govt. set up a high level committee on Public Sector restructuring to study the problems and prospects of each of the enterprises separately & suggest action plans for the revival of those which are potentially viable taking into account their need for business, administrative and financial restructuring. It has also been decided that Govt. will retain the ownership of enterprises that are potential viable after giving effect to manpower and financial restructuring measures.

Accordingly, Govt. appointed PriceWaterHouseCoopers, a renowned Global Consultant in December 2002 for the Business Optimization Study of the enterprises. Govt. implemented Administrative and Financial Restructuring in February, 2004. DCL is a Profit making organization and looking forward for setting up 100 TPD Caustic Soda Plant based on environment friendly Ion-Exchange Membrane cell Technology.