Pupuk Indonesia plans $5.2 bln petrochem complex in Papua
JAKARTA, April 18 | Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:35am EDT
(Reuters) – Indonesian fertilizer firm PT Pupuk Indonesia plans to build a petrochemical complex worth $5.2 billion in the country’s Papua region, an official said on Wednesday.
Investors from Japan, South Korea and Germany have expressed interest to take part in a plant that will have annual capacity of 2 million tonnes a year, said the firm’s CEO Arifin Tasrif.
“We want to be the majority (owner) in a joint venture company,” Tasrif said, without giving details on the timeframe for the plant.
Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, is seeing strong economic growth of over six percent and the government is keen for investors to expand the petrochemical industry to make higher value products from the country’s oil and gas output.
Papua, a remote and mountainous region in eastern Indonesia home to BP’s ‘s Tangguh liquefied natural gas plant, sees high costs for construction and businesses because of the expense in transporting materials from the country’s main industrial centres on Java island.
Pupuk Indonesia, a holding firm of four state-controlled fertilizer firms, already has plants in west and east Java, in Kalimantan on Borneo island and Aceh in Sumatra island, with a total capacity of 12 million tonnes.
The firm expects sales in 2012 to reach 45 trillion rupiah ($4.90 billion), up from last year’s 40 trillion rupiah.
($1 = 9,180 rupiah)
(Reporting by Fathiya Dahrul; Writing by Rieka Rahadiana; Editing by Neil Chatterjee)
