MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lotte Chemical has recently informed that that company has decided to proceed with the 5 trillion won (USD4.4 billion) petrochemical project in Cilegon, Indonesia after the previous delay due the pandemic. The project named Lotte Chemical Indonesia New Ethylene (LINE) is to commence construction in 2022, according to CommoPlast with reference to the company's bourse filing.
Lotte Chemical aims to bring the new complex online in 2025.
LINE consists of a mixed feeds cracker that could product 1 million tons/year of ethylene and 520,000 tons/year of propylene, and downstream polyethylene (PE) plants.
“However, the final investment and plant design might be larger than the initial plan,” a Lotte Chemical official said.
On 28 October 2021, Lotte Chemical awarded two contracts worth USD1.64 billion involving engineering and construction work for the new project to Lotte Engineering & Construction Co Ltd (LEC).
Lotte Chemical has already established presence in Indonesia via PT Lotte Chemical which operates a non-integrated 450,000 tons/year PE plant and uses ethylene feed from its sister company in Malaysia.
As MRC informed before, in January, 2019, Lotte Chemical Titan announced plans to add a naphtha-fed steam cracker with an ethylene production capacity of 1 million mt/year to its petrochemical facility in Merak of Banten province, Indonesia, by 2023, making it an integrated petrochemical complex.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,265,290 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2021, up by 14% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,363,850 tonnes in January-November, 2021, up by 25% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
MRC