BP Amoco said on January 18th that it intends to double its total investment in Malaysia by 2010, in addition to expanding its petrochemical and exploration businesses.
The oil major has already invested $1.6 billion in oil exploration and marketing, chemicals and solar panel manufacturing in the Asian producer country.
BP’s chief executive in Malaysia, Peter Wentworth, said that: “We will double our investment by 2010 and we are looking forward to continuing with world-scale operations here in the country.”
He indicated that the company’s investment in the Malaysian upstream sector would center on the Joint Development Area (JDA), a gas field shared by Thailand and Malaysia. Wentworth said that: “The upstream investments will increase because the JDA development is a phased development and we are only at the first phase.”
BP Malaysia, which is 70 percent owned by BP, had announced earlier in the week that it was in the process of building a $150 million trimellitic anhyrdride (TMA) plant to produce a plastic derivative used to insulate cables, wire and car interiors.
The TMA plant, due for completion by the end of 2002, is located on the site of the company’s purified terephthalic acid complex in Kuantan, east Malaysia.
The new plant will produce 65,000 tones of TMA a year from 2003, with 85-90 percent of its production going to Asian countries.
Raw materials for the facility will be sourced from BP’s joint venture plant with Malaysian national oil firm Petronas in the eastern Terengganu state.
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
