KOTA TINGGI: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) shared the breakdown of development progress of its US$27 billion Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) here yesterday, which was 84% completed as at end-December 2017.
Petronas’ 300,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery complex, which forms part of the US$16 billion RAPID project within the 6,242-acre PIC, was at 94% development completion, 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 today during a media familiarisation visit to PIC.
“The refinery will cater to more mid-sour crude from the Middle East,” she said.
However, she said Petronas is “still ironing out the details” on 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.
The associated steam cracker plant and petrochemical complex under RAPID — with respective annual production capacity of 3 million tonnes of feedstock and 2,640 kilotonnes of petrochemicals — were at 91% and 69% completion as at end last year.
The PIC sits in the larger, 22,000-acre Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC) endorsed by the state government of Johor and the federal government. Alongside RAPID, PIC is also home to six other associated facilities, including the centralised and shared utilities and facilities for the project and its employees.
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 Co-generation Plant (PCP) started operations 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 (mtpa) Regasification Terminal 2 (RGT2) has already 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) to provide 2,954 tonne-per-day (TPD) of industrial gases to PIC, co-owned by Petronas Gas Bhd and Linde AG, was “74% complete, with mechanical equipment installation currently progressing as planned,” said Anita.
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 State Secretary, Johor (Inc) — was at 83% completion, and will receive first crude by August 2018.
Anita said that as at end-2017, PIC has taken up over 60% of the expected project cost of US$27 billion, but did not state Petronas’ portion of it.
It was reported in October 2017 that Petronas and Saudi Aramco were seeking to raise US$8 billion via a bridge loan for RAPID. Earlier in April, Saudi Aramco agreed to an equity participation in the project by investing US$7 billion, details of which were still being ironed out at that time, according to Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani.