PTT, Siam Cement to pay $215m to upgrade units

03 May 2007 08:55  [Source: ICIS news]

BANGKOK (ICIS news)--Major Thai petrochemical firms PTT and Siam Cement Group agreed to spend Bt7bn ($214.98m) in upgrading factories to reduce pollution from their facilities at  Mab Ta Phut industrial estate in Rayong, a PTT spokesman told ICIS news on Thursday.

 

PTT's senior executive vice president for petrochemical and refining operations Prajya Phinyawat met a day earlier with Industry Minister Kosit Panpiemras to discuss a plan to reduce emissions in the area, the spokeswoman said.

 

"Dr Kosit announced that PTT and SCC are going to spend about Bt7bn,"

the spokesman said, adding the specific details had yet to be ironed out.

 

"We have to adjust all our projects to focus on reducing pollution,"

she said. "PTT has to work with the government as well."

 

The extra spending comes as part of a deal between petrochemical companies and the government to break the impasse over new investments in Mab Ta Phut. The government previously halted approvals of several schemes after local villagers complained that pollution from the area was making them ill.

 

On Wednesday, the Board of Investment, which is chaired by Kosit, approved four petrochemical projects in Mab Ta Phut worth a combined Bt67.4bn. Two belonged to PTT Chemical, PTT's olefins flagship, and the others were from Thai Polyethylene, a Siam Cement subsidiary.

 

In total, the investment board planned to approve Bt300bn in new investments in Mab Ta Phut, Kosit told local media.

 

The government is still studying whether the third phase of a “master petrochemical plan” should be implemented in the area or a yet-to-be-developed industrial estate in the country's south.

 

Thailand's Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont had suggested strife-torn Pattani province, one of three majority Malay-Muslim provinces in the thick of a brutal separatist insurgency, as a possible location to boost economic development in the region.

 

The state-run Industrial Estate Authority has also set up a Bt20m fund to assist local communities who may be affected by pollution coming from Mab Ta Phut.

 

($1 = Bt32.56)

 

By: Daniel Ten Kate
+65 6780 4359

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