Thai PTTGC on track to expand Map Ta Phut capacity: CEO

By Pearl Bantillo

SINGAPORE (ICIS)–Thailand’s PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) is proceeding with capacity expansion at its home production base in Map Ta Phut, while boosting its regional presence, the company’s top executive said.

“We have quite a number of expansion projects for our existing units here in Thailand, like the aromatics plant – we will debottleneck it. That one is already firm,” PTTGC CEO and president Bowon Vongsinudom told ICIS.

“We will finish by year 2015 –  the aromatics plant debottlenecking,” he said.

PTTGC has also firmed up a plan to boost its ethylene oxide (EO) output by 2015 and is also looking at increasing the capacity of its biggest cracker, which has a 1m tonne/year ethylene capacity.

“We have plans to build a new furnace for the cracker. That one is under study,” Vongsinudom said, adding that expansion of polymer capacity at the site is also being considered.

Raising the cracker’s capacity is expected to be completed by 2016.

Meanwhile, PTTGC has started commissioning its new plant at the site that is expected to produce 75,000 tonnes of butadiene and 25,000 tonnes of butene, with commercial production expected to begin next year, the company executive said.

Plans to increase the ratio of gas feed into its I-4 cracker No 1 in Map Ta Phut has been achieved in November, Vongsinudom said.

The cracker has a 515,000 tonne/year ethylene capacity.

Currently, PTTGC’s crackers are running at 89% of capacity, while its polymer plants are operating at above 100%, Vongsinudom said.

PTTGC has four crackers with a combined capacity of 2.38m tonnes/year, according to ICIS data.

The expansions, as well as improvement in operations, in its domestic production site are being done side by side the pursuit of a major petrochemical project Indonesia that will be built in partnership with state-owned Pertamina.

PTTGC and Pertamina plan to firm up the scope of the project in Indonesia by the first quarter of 2014.

The project, which is estimated to cost $4bn-5bn, is expected to have a 1m tonne/year cracker that can use either naphtha or gas as feedstock for production.

Among the downstream plants that would be included in the project are high density polyethylene (HDPE) and low density PE (LDPE) plants, a monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit, as well as a methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) plant.

Three locations in Indonesia as possible project site, namely, Balongan, Tuban and Plaju, the PTTGC executive said.

Meanwhile, PTTGC is also holding discussions to pursue separate projects in Malaysia and China as part of its strategy to expand its presence in the region.

The Thai petrochemical firm is in talks with Malaysian energy firm PETRONAS and Chinese commodities trading firm Sinochem.

“Both PETRONAS and Sinochem [talks] should be finalised by the first quarter of next year,” the PTTGC president said.

Read John Richardson and Malini Hariharan’s blog – Asian Chemical Connections