Petronas, Saudi Aramco explore petchem expansion in Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -- Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas and its partner Saudi Aramco are studying projects to build more petrochemical plants to make full use of raw materials from their JV in Malaysia.
Aramco signed a deal in late February to take a $7-B investment, in the RAPID (Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development) JV with Petronas in Pengerang, southern Malaysia.
Projects being studied include specialty chemicals and synthetic rubber, company officials said at an industry conference on Monday.
"We're looking at what else we can do at RAPID," said Md Arif Mahmood, executive vice president and CEO of downstream operations at Petronas.
"There will be specialty (chemicals) using the C4s (technology)," he added, referring to petrochemicals produced from naphtha crackers.
The cracker could produce about 600 Mt of butadiene, Abdulaziz Al Judaimi, senior vice president of downstream at Saudi Aramco, told reporters.
The butadiene could be used to produce either elastomers, or synthetic rubber, he said.
Reporting by Florence Tan, Emily Chow and A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by David Goodman
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