Petronas's RAPID project is near to 90% completion, on track for 2019 start up

Petronas’s Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) is at 87% completion and is on track to start up in 2019, according to the company official statement. In late March 2018, Petronas and Saudi Aramco announced the formation of two joint ventures for this project.

Saudi Aramco will supply 50% of the refinery’s crude feedstock requirements with the option of increasing to 70%. Meanwhile, natural gas, power and other utilities will be supplied by PETRONAS and its affiliates. The parties will share the rights to offtake the production of the joint ventures on an equal basis.

By the first quarter of 2019, the refinery with a designated capacity of 300,000 barrel per day would come online and downstream petrochemical units to follow 6-12 months afterwards.

RAPID houses a 3 millions tons/year naphtha cracker, 900,000 tons/year PP unit, 400,000 tons/year HDPE unit. The company also mulls over putting up a C6-based metallocene PE plant and a LDPE/EVA swing plant at the same complex with respective capacity of 350,000 tons/year and 150,000 tons/year.