MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil held a virtual foundation laying ceremony on Tuesday (March 31) for its multi-billion-dollar expansion of its Jurong Island refining and petrochemical complex to increase its production capacity for higher-value products and cleaner fuels, said Straitstimes.
This investment, which the international energy company announced in April last year, will create 135 new jobs.
It will also have significant spin-offs to the rest of the economy in areas such as logistics, process construction and maintenance, said Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean, who participated in the ceremony.
In lieu of a physical foundation laying ceremony, ExxonMobil held a video conference from two locations in Singapore and one in Dallas.
New catalyst and process technologies will be deployed at the Chemical and Refining Integrated Singapore Project to convert fuel oil and other bottom-of-the-barrel crude products into higher-value lubricant base stocks and distillates.
The expansion will increase production capacity of cleaner fuels with lower-sulphur content by 48,000 barrels per day, and 20,000 barrels per day of lubricant base stocks.
It can also optimise overall energy use and limit emissions at the facility. Waste heat will be recovered and used to generate steam to reduce electricity and fuel consumption.
Mr Teo said: "Amidst a challenging outlook in the global economy and energy industry, this is a clear indication of ExxonMobil's continued commitment to and confidence in Singapore, as its choice partner and manufacturing hub for the region.
The Singapore refining and petrochemical complex is ExxonMobil's largest integrated manufacturing facility in the world, with a crude oil distillation capacity of 592,000 barrels per day and ethylene capacity of 1.9 million tonnes per year.
ExxonMobil is also one of Singapore's largest foreign investors with over $25 billion in fixed asset investments.
The firm is in discussions with the Government on potential decarbonisation pathways, including opportunities to pilot novel carbon capture technologies here.
As MRC informed earlier, ExxonMobil Corp plans to shut the small gasoline-producing unit at its 560,500 barrels-per-day (bpd) Baytown, Texas, refinery early this week because of low demand due to efforts to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The shutdown of the 90,000 bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker 2 (FCC 2) could have happened as early as this weekend, sources said.
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.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC