This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on January 26, 2018
KOTA TINGGI (Johor): Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) shared the progress of the development of its US$27 billion (RM105.3 billion) Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) here yesterday, which was 84% completed as at end-December 2017.
The development of Petronas’ 300,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery complex, which forms part of the US$16 billion Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (Rapid) project within the 6,242-acre (2,526ha) PIC, was 94% completed, said Datin Anita Azrina Abdul Aziz, Petronas Refinery and Petrochemical Corp Sdn Bhd’s head of stakeholder, communication and risk management.
She was speaking to the press during a media familiarisation visit to the PIC yesterday.
“The refinery will cater to more mid-sour crude [such as] from the Middle East,” she said.
However, she said Petronas is “still ironing out the details” of the percentage of crude supply to be sourced from Saudi Aramco under a share purchase agreement inked in April 2017 between the two parties, as well as the pricing mechanism of the supply.
Concurrently, the associated steam cracker plant and petrochemical complex under Rapid — with an annual production capacity of three million tonnes of feedstock and 2,640 kilotonnes of petrochemicals respectively — were 91% and 69% completed as at the end of last year.
The PIC sits in the larger, 22,000-acre (8,903ha) Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex endorsed by the state government of Johor and the federal government. Alongside Rapid, the PIC is also home to five other associated facilities.
Of the five other facilities, its raw water supply project (Pamer) — which channels 30 million litres per day (MLD) to the Johor state water reservoir at Sungai Lebam and another 230 MLD to the PIC — started operations in July 2016. The project included the construction of an intake station, a dam and a booster pumping station, and 88km of raw water pipelines, Anita said.
Its wholly-owned 1,220MW Pengerang Cogeneration Plant started operation in October 2017, with 400MW sold to the the national grid. “Now, we are producing just over 900MW, and we plan to increase the portion to the national grid to over 600MW [at full capacity],” said Anita.
Similarly, its 3.5 million tonne-per-annum Regasification Terminal 2 (RGT2) started commercial operations in October last year. RGT2 is a joint venture between Petronas, Dialog Group Bhd and the Johor state government.
Meanwhile, its air separation unit (ASU) set up to provide 2,954 tonnes per day of industrial gases to the PIC, and co-owned by Petronas Gas Bhd and Linde AG, is “74% complete, with mechanical equipment installation currently progressing as planned”, said Anita.
As for the Pengerang Deepwater Terminal 2 — jointly owned by Petronas’ PRPC Utilities and Facilities Sdn Bhd, Dialog Equity (Two) Sdn Bhd, Vopak Terminal Pengerang BV as well as the State Secretary, Johor (Inc) — it was 83% completed, and will receive first crude by August this year.
Anita said that as at end-2017, the PIC had taken up over 60% of the expected project cost of US$27 billion, but did not state Petronas’ portion in the tally.