Page 10 - AsiaElec Week 35

AsiaElec FUELS AsiaElec

IOC invests $47mn in refinery

INDIA STATE-RUN Indian Oil Corp. (IOC) has IOC awarded the engineering, procurement,
invested INR3.46bn ($46.9mn) since the start construction and commissioning (EPCC) con-
of the financial year on its project to add a tract for the MEG facility to L&T Hydrocarbon
monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant to the Paradip Engineering (LTHE), a subsidiary of India’s
refinery in Odisha State. Larsen & Toubro.
Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natu- Reuters reported last week that that IOC
ral Gas Dharmendra Pradhan revealed the aimed to restart all units at the 300,000 barrel per
investment figures on August 26 during a pro- day (bpd) Paradip refinery by August 22 after a
gress update for 25 major state-run petroleum maintenance shutdown was extended for several
projects. days owing to a labour shortage caused by the
The MEG plant, which will have a face- coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
plate capacity of 357,000 tonnes per year (tpy) “Out of about 1,400 workers and supervisors
when finished, is projected to cost INR56.54bn mobilised for shutdown jobs from outside, less
($765.8mn). than 400 are there,” Jagatsinghpur District Col-
IOC, which expects the plant to come online lector Sangram Keshari Mohapatra was quoted
towards the end of 2021, reached a final invest- as saying. The district’s most senior official told
ment decision (FID) on a INR138.05bn ($1.9bn) the newswire that two of the refinery’s nine main
integrated para-xylene (PX) and purified tereph- units had been restarted.
thalic acid (PTA) facility at the same refinery. The “[The] remaining seven are being started in
newest project is slated to come online by early sequence, as all are connected, and start-up will
2024. complete over the next two days,” Mohapatra
The refiner expects that Paradip’s ability to added.
produce both PTA and MEG will not only ben- An unnamed company executive was quoted
efit its upcoming 300,000 tpy textile yarn manu- as saying that some secondary units had come
facturing project at Bhadrak, but will also boost back online.™
the local polyester manufacturing industry.

PERFORMANCE

Pertamina posts first-half loss

INDONESIA INDONESIA’S state-owned Pertamina swung sales expenses managing to offset an uptick in
into the red in the first half of the year as a “triple upstream investment.
shock” of weaker energy demand, lower oil and Gadjah Mada University economist Fahmy
gas prices and a depreciating rupiah took its toll. Radhi told the Jakarta Post on August 24 that the
The company said on August 25 that it had company would have to cut costs further and
recorded a net loss of $767.92mn in the first half, that layoffs were likely on the horizon.
compared with a $659.96mn net profit a year “In the end, it will be unavoidable for Pertam-
earlier. ina and its partners to fire employees,” he told the
“The [coronavirus] COVID-19 pandemic, Post. “Under such conditions, Pertamina cannot
the impact is very significant for Pertamina. contribute to economic growth.”
The decline in demand, the depreciation of the The major, however, is more upbeat. Usman
rupiah, and also the very sharp fluctuation of said: “Pertamina is optimistic that until the end
the crude price has greatly affected our financial of the year there will be positive movements so
performance,” Pertamina’s vice-president of cor- it is projected that profits will also be positive,
porate communication, Fajriyah Usman, said on considering that slowly the world oil price has
August 24. started to rise and also fuel consumption, both
She said that in the first half of the year fuel industry and retail, is also increasing.”
consumption fell by 13% year on year to around While the Brent crude benchmark dropped
117,000 kilolitres from 135,000 kilolitres per day. below $20 per barrel earlier this year it has since
Falling sales saw revenue sink 19.8% y/y to rebounded. The US Energy Information Admin-
$20.48bn on the back of a softening in lower istration (EIA) noted that the benchmark aver-
domestic crude and oil product sales fol- aged $43 per barrel in July, up $3 per barrel on
lowing the introduction of social quarantine June’s average. It is currently trading around $45
restrictions. per barrel and is expected to average $43 per bar-
The company managed to slash its spending rel in the second half of this year before rising to
by 14.1% y/y to $18.87bn, with a reduction in $50 per barrel in 2021. ™

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 35 02•September•2020