Published June 13, 2017, 10:00 PM By James A. Loyola
Diversified conglomerate San Miguel
Corporation (SMC) is teaming up with foreign partners to build an integrated
oil refinery and petrochemical plant at a cost of $15 billion to $20 billion.
In an interview after the firm’s
annual stockholders’ meeting, SMC President Ramon S. Ang said the refinery and
petrochemicals complex will have a capacity of 250,000 barrels of oil per day
(bopd).
Ang said they have two foreign partners
for the project but non-disclosure agreements prevent him from disclosing the
identities of these firms as well as the corporate structure.
He stressed that the project will be
undertaken by a new company and not through subsidiary Petron Corporation. The
project will be built in southern Philippines on a property that is at least
1,000 hectares.
Ang said they decided to build the
refinery and petrochemicals plant in the south because Petron already operates
a refinery in Luzon. “You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket,” he
said.
“We will break ground in six months.
The only reason for the delay is that we are still buying more land because the
complex will be big,” he said adding that the complex should be operational in
three and a half years.
Ang noted that the petrochemicals
business is more stable and profitable. “We realized that the condensation from
the refinery can be used to produce petrochemicals. There is big domestic
consumption of petrochemicals as well as strong export potential,” he added.
He cited the case of Petron which is
already exporting propylene in the world market, helping it generate P2 billion
in profits every month.
Aside from the new refinery and
petrochemicals plant, Ang said they are also investing $800 million for the
expansion of Petron’s existing refinery in Limay, Bataan to 270,000 bopd from
the current 180,000 bopd with the additional capacity mainly for the production
of petrochemicals.
Ang said they are also considering
expanding Petron’s refinery and petrochemicals plant in Malaysia where the
consumption is double that of the Philippines and thus has a big potential.
He said they still do not have an
estimate on the cost of the expansion as he is going to Malaysia on June 15 to
look at their options there.
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