Two foreign companies are expected to invest between US$16 billion and US$20 billion in the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC), said Johor Petroleum Development Corp Bhd (JPDC).
Its chief executive officer, Mohd Yazid Jaafar, said the companies, from Taiwan and Singapore, were currently doing soil investigation in the area to see whether the said land (2,000-2,400 hectares) was suitable for their potential investments.
He said the investments from the companies would be in phases, involving the construction of facilities to refine oil, naptha cracker and petrochemical complex.
"Their investments are almost the same like Petronas' Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project.
"If the project is smoothly implemented, PIPC will not only have one RAPID complex but three," he told Bernama here today.
Mohd Yazid, who declined to name the companies, said the preliminary works would take a year.
"We expect the companies to make the 'final investment decision' by next year and construction work to start after that.
"The facilities planned by the companie s are expected to be operational by 2016 to capitalise on the market upswing in 2017-2018.
He said the two companies were expected to bring in their business partners, especially in petrochemical and other downstream sector, to PIPC.
"The Taiwanese firm is expected to bring in between 20 and 24 business partners," he said.
JPDC is a federal government agency which is jointly chaired by Minister in Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Idris Jala and Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman.
It aims to coordinate the development of the oil and gas sector in Johor, especially downstream industries such as processing and storage of oil and petrochemicals.
The PIPC project involves the development of 8,000ha in Pengerang, of which about 2,549.51ha was acquired by Petronas to develop RAPID, which involved an investment of RM60 billion.
-- BERNAMA