By Chen Aizhu and Trixie Yap
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -PetroChina has made the final investment decision to build a new multi-billion-dollar refinery and petrochemical complex in northeast China’s Dalian, following recent closure of a nearby old plant, according to a company official and two industry sources.
The new complex comprises a 200,000-barrel per day crude oil refinery, a 1.4 million metric ton per year ethylene complex as well as a variety of downstream petrochemical units such as polyethylene, polypropylene and polyolefin elastomer, said the official and one of the industry sources.
The official declined to be named because the decision is not yet public while the sources with knowledge of the matter spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak about it publicly.
It remains unclear when exactly the final investment decision for the new site was made.
The complex, to be built on Changxing Island, about two hours’ drive from downtown Dalian, has an estimated cost of 68.5 billion yuan ($9.56 billion), said a second source.
The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
PetroChina has begun building some infrastructure at the site such as a jetty and pipelines, said one of the two industry sources.
Reuters has reported PetroChina was on track to close the whole 410,000-bpd refinery in downtown Dalian operated by subsidiary Dalian Petrochemical Corp, switching off the last crude oil unit last month and set to clean out refined fuel inventories by the end of August.
The mothballing of the old plant, PetroChina’s largest domestic refinery in China, came amid refiners’ struggle with overcapacity and weakened fuel demand from slowing economic growth and the electrification of the country’s car fleet.
($1 = 7.1673 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Chen Aizhu and Trixie Yap; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
