Petronas Chemicals eyeing acquisitions to boost specialty business
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The chemical manufacturing unit of Malaysia’s state energy firm Petronas is actively looking to acquire companies to expand its specialty chemical business, its chief executive officer said.
Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd is looking to grow aggressively in specialty chemicals, which are raw materials used to manufacture consumer products such as high-performance
CEO Sazali Hamzah said acquisitions would be a key step toward expanding the higher-margin specialty chemicals business.
“We have already targeted a few. When we acquire, it’s not only for technology but also for market penetration,” Sazali told Reuters in an interview, adding that Petronas Chemicals was looking at companies in Europe, the United States
Sazali also said the acquisition market was competitive as a lot of companies are looking to expand into petrochemicals.
Much of Petronas’ capital expenditures in the last few years has been spent on its downstream business, particularly the Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project in the southern Malaysian state of Johor.
RAPID is part of the Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) that includes a 300,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery and a petrochemical complex with a production capacity of 7.7 million metric tonnes and an oil storage site.
Companies such as Saudi Aramco, Exxon Mobil Corp
Last year, Aramco inked a deal to invest $7 billion in RAPID. It later bought a $900 million stake in petrochemical projects in the RAPID complex.
Petronas Chemicals is spearheading the petrochemicals component of RAPID, which is Petronas’ largest downstream project with an estimated $27 billion of total investment.
The company is conducting joint studies with other potential partners for developing more petrochemical projects in PIC, he said, declining to provide details.
Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi and Emily Chow; Editing by Christian Schmollinger
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