MOSCOW (MRC) -- Siam Cement Group (SCG) says its planned petrochemical complex in Vietnam would be further postponed by six months, pending the conclusion of an agreement with a new joint-venture partner following the exit of Qatar Petroleum International (QPI), as per GV.
The USD4.5-billion fully integrated complex is to be the first of its kind in Vietnam and a key regional flagship for the Thai conglomerate.
For Siam Cement, the massive size of the Vietnamese complex dictates that it would be better to wait until every major component is in place, said chief financial officer Chaovalit Ekkabut. SCG is now being in talks with a number of potential new partners who are keen to jointly invest, he added. "We think we are still in the timeline to complete everything in six months so that the project would go ahead and be completed as planned," said Chaovalit, noting that the focus was on the long-term potential of petrochemical demand in Vietnam rather than the normal cycles of the global petrochemical business.
To be developed on Long Son Island in southern Ba Ria Vung Tau province, the complex will consist of a factory capable of turning out 1.65 million tons of olefins, 1.45 million tons of polyolefins, 280,000 tons of chlor-alkali, and other materials each year. The site will also include support facilities, including a port, warehouses and a power plant.
SCG holds 46 % in the Long Son Petrochemicals Project, in which QPI previously had a 25% stake. The remaining 29% belongs to two Vietnamese partners - PetroVietnam and Vinachem.
The Qatari partner has maintained raw material supply contracts for the complex which was granted an investment license in 2008. Prior to the latest delay, it was projected to come onstream in 2018.
As MRC informed previously, in November 2015, Qatar Petroleum (QP), as part of a restructuring program, announced plans to withdraw from the joint venture Long Son petrochemical complex in Vietnam.
Besides, in 2014, top Thai energy firm PTT Pcl said it would make a proposal to the Vietnamese government to build a USD20 billion refinery and petrochemical complex, revised down from an earlier project discussed two years ago.
MRC
MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petronas Chemicals Group, a unit of Malaysia's state-run oil-and-gas company Petroliam Nasional, or Petronas, plans to spend USD 4 billion over the next five years, channeling the bulk of the cash to a mammoth petrochemical project in the southern state of Johor, as per GV.
The planned expenditure is in line with its parent's commitment to continue with the Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development, also known as the Rapid project, even as it faces tough business conditions in 2016 amid low crude oil prices. Apart from Rapid, other key projects for this year include construction of a specialty chemical plant in the eastern Malaysian state of Pahang, said Petronas Chemicals chief executive Sazali Hamzah. The company is also building a plant that will produce polyisobutene, he added. "Many companies will tend to back off from capital investments, stopping or shelving some of their projects," Sazali said. "(But) with our strong cash position, we have the advantage to fund our existing projects and growth projects as well."
Despite dwindling earnings and global oil glut, Petronas is pushing ahead with the massive USD 27 billion Rapid project to expand further into specialty chemicals business that typically commands higher margins than other downstream products.
The complex includes a deep-water port and petrochemical and gas-import facilities, making it more of an integrated industrial complex. It will also house petrochemicals and polymer plants with a production capacity of nearly 3.5 million tons of differentiated and highly-specialized products.
As MRC reported before, Petronas plans to build a C6-based metallocene linear LDPE plant and a low density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) swing plant at its greenfield integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in southern Johor state by mid-2019. The proposed metallocene LLDPE will have a capacity of 350,000 tpa, while the LDPE/EVA will have a capacity of about 150,000 tpa. The two plants are part of Petronas' planned Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development project in Pengerang at Johor. RAPID includes a 300,000 bpd refinery and a petrochemical complex with a 3 million tpa steam cracker, and is expected to come onstream in mid-2019. The petrochemical complex will have the capacity to produce 7.7 million tpa of petrochemical products.
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.
MRC