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Consolidation Thai style

Aromatics, Business, Company Strategy, M&A, Olefins, Polyolefins, Thailand
By John Richardson on 01-Mar-2011

By Malini Hariharan

The long-awaited merger between PTT Chem and PTT Aromatics (PTTAR) was finally announced last week.

A presentation made to financial analysts gave details on what the merged entity will look like, planned synergies and opportunities for growth.

The new company with a total petrochemical capacity of 8.261m tonnes/year and petroleum products capacity of 228,000 bbls/day will be a clear leader in Thailand (ahead of Siam Cement Chemical) and also in Southeast Asia. It will be second to Petronas Chemical in terms of enterprise value but number one on revenue and assets.

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Source: PTTAR

Synergy projects have already been identified which would require an investment of $92m. These include tapping the offgases, C3/C4, heavy aromatics and other streams from the PTTAR’s refinery as feedstocks for PTT Chem’s existing crackers and optimisation of facilities such as oil tanks, jetties, and steam and gas turbines, Once completed by 2015, these projects would yield annual benefits ranging from $80.2m to $154.1m.

The merged entity sees opportunities for expansion in value-added products/ differentiated products such as polyurethane, propylene oxide (PO), polycarbonate, polymethyl methacrylate and caprolactam.

In a statement to the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) the two companies also talked about improvement to the refining process that would result in increased production of hydrowax which will be used as feedstock for a new cracker project. No further details were available about this project.

The merger of PTT Chem and PTTAR is the first stage in the full consolidation of all the PTT affiliates. The next stage will see a merger of IRPC with the new company.

“This is our future plan, to combine all the petrochemical units in order to gain market capital, add value to our assets and improve cost efficiency,” said PTT president and chief executive Prasert Bunsumpun at a press conference last week.