PETALING JAYA: Johor Petroleum Development Corp Bhd (JPDC) has secured committed investments of more than RM5 billion in the second phase of its Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC) amid the post-Covid-19 recovery.
As at April 6, committed investments in phase two of PIPC amounted to RM5.05 billion versus JPDC’s 2021 target to attract RM5 billion worth of new investments between 2020 and 2025.
Acting chief executive Izhar Hifnei Ismail said the agency is currently facilitating and assisting several prospective investors in their feasibility studies towards establishing their downstream oil and gas as well as petrochemical businesses in PIPC.
“For this second phase, we have started to focus on opening new industrial areas such as the Pengerang Industrial Park by Johor Corporation. After that, we’ll bring in other players like LG Chem Ltd from South Korea which has a joint venture with Petronas.
“All of these activities are either directly related to the supervision of industrial areas, petrochemicals or support activities for downstream oil and gas or petrochemical activities,” said Izhar.
PIPC is a 25-year development between 2013 and 2037 comprising four phases.
Phase 1 (2013-2019) saw two catalytic projects being developed. One of them, Pengerang Deepwater Terminals, is an oil and petroleum-product storage facility with a capacity of up to five million cubic metres, supported by deep water jetties. This was developed by Dialog Group Bhd with a RM14.71 billion investment.
The other project is the Pengerang Integrated Complex which comprises refinery and petrochemical facilities as well as supporting facilities developed by Petronas with a US$27 billion (RM119.8 billion) investment.
The federal and Johor governments have also developed critical infrastructure and social amenities in PIPC worth more than RM3 billion to support industrial growth.
Izhar said that with the rapid growth of green technology and sustainability, JPDC is encouraging new investments in the second phase of PIPC to have strong and clear sustainability plans.
He noted that for these companies to invest and raise their capital, their financiers would always scrutinise and evaluate their project proposals in line with environmental, social and governance standards.
“To achieve all this, we have found a lot of new proposals to bring in technologies that take into account the production of lower carbon footprint, for example. The technologies are available and indeed we encourage investors with such technologies to come to PIPC,” he added.
The new investments were mostly from Europe and Asia.