Malaysia: International oil and gas firms keen to invest in Pengerang

International O&G firms keen to invest in PIPC
New Straits Times 30 Apr 14;

JOHOR BARU: Several international oil and gas consortiums have shown deep interest to invest in the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC) project, said Johor Petroleum Development Corporation Bhd (JPDC).
JPDC chief executive Mohd Yazid Jaafar said the corporation is in the midst of pitching to several potential investors for them to be part of the multi-billion oil and gas project.

"A lot of them (international consortiums) are interested, however we are still at the early stage. One is actually in advance talks and the other two or three, (the talks) are at the early stages.

"They are still evaluating, still conducting their feasibility studies and when the time is right we will make the announcement," he told the media after a briefing on the progress of PIPC here today.

Covering more than 8,000 hectares (ha), the PIPC, which includes the Petronas-led Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID), will transform Johor into a sustainable, world-class downstream oil and gas hub.

The total potential investment in PIPC could surpass RM170 billion, with Petronas alone is slated to spend RM89 billion in the RAPID project which is expected to come on stream in early 2019.

PIPC's core activities are refineries, petrochemical plants, liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tanks, power plant, regasification plant, oil storage tanks and naphtha crackers.

Mohd Yazid declined to divulge details on the international consortiums' origins or on the quantum of their potential investment in PIPC.

"What I can say is that, they are not so much from Europe and it involved more than one international consortiums," he said, adding there were not many places which offered facilities like what Pengerang is offering, apart from China.

He said Petronas' decision to approve its Final Investment Decision (FID) on RAPID early this month has boosted the confidence of investors planning to invest in PIPC.

"Petronas' decision to invest (in RAPID) holds the key because in this particular development, Petronas is the pathfinder, the catalyst and the anchor tenant," said Mohd Yazid.

As of mid-March this year, he said Petronas had completed 80 per cent of phase one on site preparation and earthwork.

As of December last year, the national oil company had inked three Heads of Agreements with Italy's Versalis SpA, Itochu from Japan and Germany's Evonik to
build specialty chemicals.

Petronas' RAPID covers 2,496.8ha and consists of 300,000-barrel-per-day refinery which will be ready for start up in early 2019, naphtha cracker, LNG
regasification plant, power generation plant and between 20 and 24 petrochemical plants.

According to Mohd Yazid, JPDC had received a lot of queries from potential investors interested to become partners in PIPC, which could be attributed to Petronas' FID to proceed with RAPID.

On the issue of supply of raw water to PIPC, he said Johor will still be the party responsible for ensuring the availability of raw water to the project, but will be assisted by Petronas.

Earlier in his briefing, Mohd Yazid said phase one of Dialog-Vopak's Pengerang Independent Deepwater Petroleum Terminal (PIDPT) has begun operations on April 12 this year when it received its first oil-laden ship.

Since then, the terminal, which will have five million cubic metres of oil storage capacity upon full completion, have received eight more ships.-- Bernama

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