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IPCL shareholders approve Baroda unit sale

State-owned Indian Petrochemicals Corporation (IPCL) said on Tuesday that shareholders had approved the sale of a money-losing refinery to another state-run company to improve IPCL's attractiveness ahead of the sale of a 25 per cent stake to private investors.

IPCL, India's second-largest petrochemicals firm, is selling its Baroda plant in Gujarat to Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC), the country's largest state-owned oil refiner and distributor, the company said in a statement.

The statement quoted IPCL managing director Ashok Chawla as saying IOC has also shown interest in acquiring IPCL's research and development centres at Baroda and catalysts and adsorbents unit near Bombay.

IPCL has appointed Deloitte Haskins and Sells to value the Baroda refinery, and IOC will also carry out an independent valuation, the statement said.

Efforts will be made to complete the transaction before March 31, it added.

The sale will leave IPCL with two refineries - at Dahej (Gujarat) and Nagothane near Bombay, which together have a total capacity of 700,000 metric tonnes of ethylene.

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