MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petronas Chemicals has secured a USD1-billion bridge loan from various local and international banks, fulfilling one of the conditions of its planned divestment of a 50% stake in PRPC Polymers to Aramco Overseas Holding Cooperatif (AOHC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, as per Apic-online.
Late last year, Petronas and AOHC signed a share purchase agreement, valued at around USD900-million, in which the parties would have equal ownership in PRPC Polymers, located within Petronas' Pengerang Integrated Complex in Johor, Malaysia. The transaction had been expected to close by 15 Mar. 2018.
The bridge loan will be used to finance part of the costs to develop, construct, commission and operate polymers and glycol plants in Pengerang, which are currently under construction and are expected to be completed in 2019.
The bridge loan has a tenure of 12 months, with an extension of six months at the discretion of PRPC Polymers.
As MRC informed earlier, Petronas plans to build a C6-based metallocene linear LDPE plant and a low density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) swing plant at its greenfield integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in southern Johor state by mid-2019. The proposed metallocene LLDPE will have a capacity of 350,000 tpa, while the LDPE/EVA will have a capacity of about 150,000 tpa. The two plants are part of Petronas' planned Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development project in Pengerang at Johor.
Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
MRC