Petrochemical Corp of Singapore (PCS)'s 200,000 mta Propylene plant

08-Feb-05

Petrochemical Corp. of Singapore (PCS) plans to build a new metathesis plant with a capacity of 200,000 tpa of propylene, expected to start up in Q3- 2006. Metathesis is an olefins conversion technology to convert ethylene and butene to propylene. PCS also plans to debottleneck one of its two naphtha cracker complexes : its second ethylene plant to further increase propylene output by 30,000 tpa. The company's propylene capacity after the completion of the metathesis plant and debottlenecking (by mid-2005) will be raised by more than 30% to more than 850,000 tpa. The other project involves debottlenecking its C4 facilities to increase the butene-1 and methyl tertiary butyl ether production by 10,000 tpa and 6,000 tpa, respectively. The debottlenecking projects are expected to be completed by mid-2006. The new metathesis plant will cost S$80 million ( US$48.86 million) to construct and the debottlenecking projects will cost the company a further US$15 million. PCS, which is jointly owned by Shell Eastern Petroleum Pte. Ltd. and Japan-Singapore Petrochemicals Co. operates two naphtha crackers with a total capacity of 1.08 million tons.