Petrochemicals industry’s impending growth requires ‘land intensification’
WITH the world’s largest oil/petrochemical companies like ExxonMobil and PetroChina planning even more investments here, Singapore is studying how to intensify land use for the industry. This follows JTC Corporation’s recent foray into building underground oil/chemicals storage caverns on Jurong Island and its plans for offshore floating oil storage to complement land reclamation on the petrochemicals-complex island.
JTC called a tender this week for a consultant on this, specifying that ‘only tenderers with proven experience and expertise in related feasibility studies as well as the designing, construction and development of local or overseas petrochemical facilities are eligible’.
JTC’s latest ‘land intensification’ study for the petrochemicals industry is yet another avenue it is exploring to stretch Singapore’s limited land resources. This started last month when it called for a consultant to study land intensification for the offshore and marine sector, given the shortage of sites, especially with waterfront access.
JTC said that with energy and chemicals accounting for 38.6 per cent of the Republic’s manufacturing output, its challenge is to see how it can intensify land use or create more land to support the industry’s growth.
For its latest petrochemicals study, the consultant will look at areas including aggregation/sharing of common flare towers, turnaround areas and other facilities, as well as locating relevant operations in multi-storey structures or stack-up concepts. The consultant will also study derivative units at a given petrochemicals site and the units’ requirements (like water and electricity, as well as regulatory and safety buffers), and identify potential land use areas that can be improved.
The latest study is important, given that biggies like ExxonMobil – currently building its second world-scale petrochem complex here, costing an estimated US$5 billion – are planning yet more projects. So also is PetroChina, which bought Singapore Petroleum Company (SPC) for S$3.2 billion, giving it a half-stake in the 290,000 barrels per day refinery of Singapore Refining Company (SRC), among various SPC assets.
In response to queries about JTC’s current move to also carry out land reclamation at Ayer Chawan Basin – which is next to the ExxonMobil (EM) and SRC facilities – an EM spokeswoman told BT: ‘We are evaluating additional investments in Asia Pacific, including a potential diesel project at our Singapore refinery. But we’re unable to provide additional comment at this time.’
This is apparently for another major clean fuels investment, a hydro-desulphurisation plant, to produce ultra- low-sulphur diesel at ExxonMobil’s US$11 billion refining/petrochemical Singapore facility, already its largest manufacturing site worldwide.
PetroChina, say sources, is also keen to build on its SPC investment here, especially to increase the complexity of the SRC refinery, which it jointly owns with Chevron. The upgrading of the SRC refinery could also result in the boosting of the refining capacity, they said.
Currently, SRC is doing front-end engineering design on a ultra-low-sulphur gasoline plant and a 60-70 megawatt cogeneration plant to supply the refinery with steam, cooling water and electricity. The final investment decision for the two projects, costing an estimated US$300-400 million, is expected by year-end.
Source : Business Times – 7 Aug 2010