Capacity expansion planned for Philippines’ sole naphtha cracker

JG Summit Petrochemicals Group (JGSPG), a wholly owned subsidiary of JG Summit Holdings Inc., has let a contract to Fluor Corp. to provide engineering, procurement, and construction management (EPCM) for the utilities, off sites, and infrastructure for an expansion of JGSPG’s petrochemical complex in Barangay Simlong, Batangas City, Philippines, 120 km south of Metro Manila overlooking Batangas Bay.

Alongside EPCM for utilities, off sites and infrastructure, Fluor also is providing program management services for the expansion project, which will increase JGSPG’s ethylene production by 160,000 tonnes/year and propylene production by 50,000 tpy, Fluor said.

The expansion is scheduled to be completed by yearend 2020, the service company said.

Fluor, which booked the order in third-quarter 2017, did not disclose a value of the EPCM contract.

Operated by JG Summit Olefins Corp. (JGSOC), JGSPG’s petrochemical complex houses the Philippines’ first and only naphtha cracker, which—commissioned in 2009 at a cost of $700 million—uses process technology from Lummus Technology to produce 320,000 tpy polymer-grade ethylene and 190,000 tpy of polymer-grade propylene.

JGSOC’s production is used as feedstock for fellow JGSPG subsidiary JG Summit Petrochemical Corp.’s polymers plant at the complex, which produces 320,000 tpy of polyethylene and 190,000 tpy of polypropylene, according to JGSPG’s web site.

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].