Petronas RAPID to go ahead as part of Malaysia PIPC
In making the final investment decision (FID) on the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC), the Malaysia national oil company (NOC) Petronas is triggering the execution phase of the Refinery And Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project in the south Johor next to Singapore.
With RAPID as master piece, the Pengerang Integrated Complex project is the fish bone of Malaysia Economic Transformation Programme.
As most of the developing countries in Asia, Malaysia is willing to value its oil and gas resources primarily to increase its local transformation activities and correlated employment.
This strategic choice is boosting the oil and gas exploration production in order to feed the refinery and petrochemical integrated complex.
In addition it requires to build a crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal and regasification as Malaysia may turn to become in the same time importer and exporter of hydrocarbon products.
Located at the south-east end of the Malaysia Peninsula the Pengerang Independent Deepwater Petroleum Terminal (PIDPT) will benefit from a direct access to international shipping lines with the proximity of Singapore Jurong Island hub.
The local Dialog Group and the Dutch Royal Vopak are currently completing the Pengerang Terminal Phase-1 and are already working on the Phase-2 in targeting five million cubic meters capacity by the year 2020 to secure the feedstock supply of Petronas RAPID project.
Petronas RAPID to involve Evonik, Itochu, Versalis
In 2013, Petronas signed licence agreements with international petrochemical and engineering companies to optimize the critical processes of Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC).
While Technip completed the front end engineering and design (FEED) for the 300,000 barrels per day (b/d) refinery and the petrochemical complex, CB&I Lummus provided Petronas with the licences and basic design for the steam cracker to produce the:
- Benzene
- Ethylene
- Isobutylene
- MTBE
In parallel Jacobs designed the sulfur recovery units.
With the German chemical company Evonik Industries AG (Evonik) , Petronas is planning to build:
- 250,000 tonnes per year (t/y) of Hydrogen peroxide
- 220,000 t/y of isononanol
- 110,000 t/y of 1-butene
As a world leader of the production of elastomers, Versalis, the chemical branch of Italian national oil company Eni, established a joint venture with Petronas for the synthetic rubber production units in RAPID.
In total the Rapid project should contain more than 28 different production units.
Planned to start operations in 2016 or 2017, the RAPID project met some delays because of the infrastructures required to support Malaysia largest ever project.
To power Petronas RAPID project and all related facilities, the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex will include a:
- 1,300 MW gas-fired power plant
- Dam with 88 kilometers pipeline to supply soft water to the complex.
After aligning all the packages to allow the final investment decision on the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex, Petronas and its partners, Evonik, Itochu and Versalis, are expecting the RAPID project to come on stream by 2019.
