MOSCOW (MRC) -- Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical (PRefChem), a joint venture of Petronas and Saudi Aramco, confirmed an explosion and fire at the Pengerang Integrated Complex in Johor, Malaysia, reported Apic-online with reference to several industry reports.
The complex has a 300,000-b/d refinery, which, once fully operational, will provide feedstock for an integrated petrochemical complex with a nameplate capacity of 3.3-million t/y.
Five people were killed in the explosion, which occurred at the diesel hydrotreater unit. The site has been shut down and an investigation into the cause of the incident is underway.
The complex also experienced an explosion and fire last April in the atmospheric residue desulfurization unit. There were no casualties in that fire.
As MRC wrote before, PRefChem took its naphtha cracker in Johor off-stream after an explostion and fire at the site with no notice on how long the unit would remain shut. The cracker has an annual capacity of 1.2 million tons/year of ethylene and 600,000 tons/year of propylene.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.
PrefChem is a 50:50 joint venture between Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas, and Saudi Aramco. The Pengerang Refining development, part of Petronas’ USD27 billion Pengerang Integrated Complex, consists of a 300,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) oil refinery and a petrochemical complex with a production capacity of 7.7 million tonnes per year in the southern Malaysian state of Johor.
Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
Saudi Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a Saudi Arabian national oil and natural gas company based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco"s value has been estimated at up to USD10 trillion in the Financial Times, making it the world"s most valuable company. Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 260 billion barrels, and largest daily oil production.
MRC