MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sumitomo Chemical will build naphtha storage tanks and a wharf where large ships transporting the feedstock can dock at a petrochemical plant in Singapore, as per Plastemart with reference to Nikkei Asian Review.
The Japanese company is expected to invest 8 bln yen to 9 bln yen (USD69.6 -78.3 mln) in the project, set for completion in 2017.
Sumitomo Chemical aims to pare costs by enhancing and streamlining the process of taking in petrochemical feedstock. The facilities will be built at a plant operated by PCS, a company in which Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal Dutch Shell group also owns a stake. The tanks will have a capacity of 240,000 kiloliters. The naphtha currently is stored in tanks leased from other companies.
The wharf will be able to dock tankers with a capacity of 50,000 to 70,000 tons - doubling the size that can be accommodated. This will cut drop-offs by naphtha tankers to once every eight to 10 days from once per four to five days. PCS procures naphtha via pipeline from nearby refineries and also imports it from the Middle East. The new tanks, in addition to reducing costs, will enable Sumitomo Chemical to more easily blend naphtha suitable for its plants, reducing the burden on them.
As MRC wrote previously, Japan's Sumitomo Chemical Co mothballed the ageing 415,000 tpa naphtha cracker at its Chiba plant from May 11, 2015. To offset lost production, in April, 2015, Sumitomo Chemical raised its stake in Maruzen Petrochemical Co's 55-percent-owned unit Keiyo Ethylene to 45 percent and will receive 59.4 percent of petrochemical output from the venture's naphtha cracker. Though Sumitomo Chemical's cracker is shut for good, the company resumed operations of downstream petrochemical units at the Chiba plant from the beginning of July, using petrochemical feedstock from Keiyo Ethylene's 768,000 tpy cracker located nearby. A total of seven new pipelines are in the process of being installed to transport petrochemicals to Sumitomo Chemical's plant starting in July.
Sumitomo Chemical is a Japanese based manufacturer of a diverse range of products, including basic chemicals, petrochemicals and plastics, fine chemicals, agricultural chemicals, IT-related chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
MRC