INDONESIA: Energi Mega Persada to enter petrochemical business

Publicly-listed oil and gas firm PT Energi Mega Persada (EMP) is seeking to diversify its business by developing two purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plants worth USD 600 million this year.

The new facilities will have a combined production capacity of 1.6 million t/y of PTA.

EMP, through its subsidiary PT Energi Mega PTA, signed a memorandum of agreement with China’s Reignwood International Investment Group on 3 Feb., through which the former will acquire the latter’s future PTA plants in an unspecified location under an engineering, procurement and construction contract.

Reignwood currently operates two PTA facilities with an overall capacity of 2.1 million t/y in China and has another two PTA projects on the pipeline.

“The company [EMP] is taking a chance to diversify by penetrating the petrochemical business industry, which has been growing with a more stable cash flow [compared to the oil and gas industry],” said EMP president director Imam P. Agustino in a statement on Friday (9 Feb 2018).

EMP expected to secure loans with low-interest rates from several Chinese lenders to finance the acquisition of the two facilities this year, he added.

Source: Daily “The Jakarta Post”, Jakarta; 11 Feb 2018
(Syed Rashid Ali, Karachi, Pakistan)