MOSCOW (MRC) -- Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET)-listed PTT Global Chemical Plc (PTTGC), Thailand’s largest petrochemical producer, plans to start the development of naphtha feedstock for its petrochemical production process by end of this year, as per GV.
The project, called Map Ta Phut Retrofit, will include a naphtha cracker plant to produce 500,000 t/y of ethylene and 261,000 t/y of propylene. To operate at this capacity, 1.5 million t/y of naphtha feedstock will be required. The naphtha cracker will help convert the surplus of naphtha from its oil refinery into olefins.
PTTGC will proceed with an invitation for bidding and could have a final list of contractors by year’s end, with the project expected to go live in 2020. Regarding development of the cracker project, PTTGC would conduct a feasibility study for a downstream project, which relates to ethylene and propylene products such as acrylic acid, styrene monomer, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and polystyrene. The development cost, however, has yet to be finalized.
The project is a part of a broader plan to spend capital expenditures worth USD 4.5 billion over the next five years, which includes an olefins cracker for its big petrochemical complex project in the US state of Ohio. PTTGC produces 2 million t/y of surplus naphtha from its oil refineries, 80 % of which is sold to Siam Cement Plc, while the remaining 20 % is exported.
The new olefins feedstock is expected to further boost its production of olefin products. As a result, PTTGC’s ethylene production will increase to 2.8 million t/y, and its propylene production will jump to 800,000 t/y. PTTGC is also planning to develop a polyurethane chain for isocyanate and polyols, which are feedstocks for foam, coating materials, adhesives and building materials. Most of the new downstream products will be modified with specialty polymers to make them higher grade than other commodity grade polymers in the market. The company also aims to invest in biodegradable plastics, though plans have been delayed for another year, due largely to collapsing global oil prices.
As MRC reported before, PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) is establishing PTTGC America Corp. and PTTGC America LLC, both based in the US, to move forward plans for building a complex in Ohio to take advantage of low-cost ethane from shale gas.
PTT Global Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a year.
MRC