Early January: Downstream news from Asia

China

Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Sinopec are now one step closer to confirming the project to construct a refinery and petrochemical facility in the Guangdong Province of China. The facility is likely to cost the partnership US$ 9 billion. It is projected that the refinery will produce 300 000 bpd and the petrochemical plant will process 1 million tpy of ethylene. The two companies are hoping to bring the facility online in 2014.

India

Indian firms and Venezuela re in talks with Reliance Industries Ltd and Essor Oil Ltd, to refine oil from Venezuelan blocks in the aforementioned companies’ Indian based refineries. The blocks in Venezuela re expected to produce 0.06 million tpy for processing in Indian based refining facilities.

Reliance Industries has scheduled in maintenance at its SEZ refinery located in the Jamnagar complex. The company will halt production from the crude distillation unit at the facility for three weeks in February. This is the first maintenance turnaround at the facility since it came online in 2009. During the maintenance period, processing capacity of the facility’s other distillation units will be unaffected.

Indian Oil Corporation has announced plans to double crude refining capacity from 61.7 – 123 million tpy over the next 10 years. The company are also discussing plans to construct a new refinery in Gujarat with an investment of 30 000 crore.

Japan

ExxonMobil is in discussions to see its 50% share of TonenGeneral Sekiyu KK. It is expected that this deal could be worth US$ 5 billion if it goes through. TonenGeneral currently imports and distributes Exxon oil throughout Japan and is the country’s number two refiner. 

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