Page 5 - AsianOil Week 25
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AsianOil
SOUTH ASIA AsianOil
company was building a 1.5 billion rupee DEF factory in Budge Budge.
e company will spend 10 billion rupees on 100 new fuel stations, to bring its network to 1,300 stations by March 31, 2020. Bharat said the new sta- tions would be company-owned-dealer-operated (CODO). Around 40% of IOC’s stations operate under a CODO model, while the remaining 60% are dealer-owned-dealer-operated (DODO).
e company also intends to build a 16.3 billion rupee LPG bottling plant at Kharagpur
by March 31, 2021. e central government’s Ujjwala social welfare programme was launched in 2016 and has resulted in about 72 million households receiving LPG connec- tions. Bharat noted that the Ujjwala drive had li ed the state’s LPG penetration by 6% year on year to 93.9%.
In addition to IOC’s fossil fuel upgrades, the company has also pledged 2 billion rupees towards building 5,000 kilolitres of new biofuel and ethanol production capacity.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Petronas CEO warns over dangers of low oil, gas investment
FINANCE & INVESTMENT
THE CEO of Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas, Wan Zulki ee Wan Ari n, has warned the oil and gas industry about the dangers of curbing investment in long-lead energy projects during periods of depressed oil prices.
Wan Zulki ee, who was giving a presentation at the Asia Oil & Gas Conference (AOGC) in Kuala Lumpur on June 25, highlighted the lim- ited number of nal investment decisions (FIDs) in lique ed natural gas (LNG) projects in recent years and said the long-term e ects of this would start appearing in the coming years.
The executive pointed to his own compa- ny’s continued investment in major domestic and international projects despite oil and gas price pressure. He said the company’s growing portfolio of LNG supply projects, which will now include the $40bn LNG Canada following a positive FID in 2018, would become a major contributor to its income.
Wan Zulki ee was also upbeat about his com- pany’s Re nery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) in Johor State, which is slated for a fourth-quarter start-up.
“We sanctioned this project when the oil prices were really low. Now the construction is almost complete, we are pre-commissioning part of the plant and we hope to be in commercial operations by the end of the year,” said Wan Zulki ee.
RAPID will consist of a 300,000 barrel per day (b/d) of re nery and 3.6 million tonnes per year (t/y) of petrochemical capacity.
Wan Zulkiflee also said his company was “bullish” in terms of petrochemical demand projections, with his comments coming one day a er subsidiary Petronas Chemicals said it intended to invest $6bn in expanding its spe- cialty chemicals division via acquisitions. e unit also unveiled plans to invest up to $7bn in expanding existing petrochemical operations.
e oil price crash of 2014 forced the com- pany to slash its capital expenditure budgets and search for greater operational e ciency.
e executive said: “We learn many things in these di cult times. Many ine ciencies have crept not only into Petronas [but also] the whole industry when the times were really good. We really took this opportunity to really eliminate these ine ciencies.”
While Petronas has no plans to become a leader in the renewable energy space, as Wan Zulki ee noted that return on investment (RoI) there falls short of that in conventional oil and gas projects, the company is upping its investment in carbon emissions reduction. “Last year, Petronas produced around 54 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Our target is to bring it down to 49.5 million tonnes [of CO2e] in three to ve years.”
Week 25 26•June•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P5
