Photo taken on Sept. 6, 2019 shows some bottles of qualified petrochemical products produced by Hengyi Industries Sdn Bhd, a joint petrochemical venture between China and Brunei in Bandar Seri Begawan, capital of Brunei. Hengyi Industries Sdn Bhd, a joint petrochemical venture between China and Brunei, has announced that its atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit had successfully produced qualified petrochemical products. (Xinhua)
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- Hengyi Industries Sdn Bhd, a joint petrochemical venture between China and Brunei, has announced that its atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit had successfully produced qualified petrochemical products.
Chen Liancai, CEO of Hengyi Industries, told Xinhua on Saturday that the new success means that Hengyi's oil refinery and petrochemical project at Pulau Muara Besar (PMB), a 955-hectare industrial park on an island at the Brunei Bay, has taken a solid step toward full commercial operation.
Chen said that the operation of the atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit is safe and stable, indicating that the unit has been successfully started, which laid the foundation for the project to enter the entire process of the refinery.
According to Chen, Hengyi's PMB project is being developed in two phases. The first phase takes up 276 hectares of land and a total investment of 3.45 billion U.S. dollars, and Hengyi commits a possible further 12 billion U.S. dollars for development of the second phase.
The CEO said that the first phase of the project has a processing capacity of eight million tons of crude oil per year. The crude oil needed for the project will be provided partially by Brunei, and the rest will be imported from the surrounding oil-producing countries.
Haji Mat Suny, Brunei's Minister of Energy, Manpower and Industry said in February that after full operation, the PMB project is expected to increase Brunei's GDP by 1.33 billion U.S. dollars in the first year and create more than 1,600 jobs.
Hengyi Industries is a joint venture between China's Zhejiang Hengyi Group and Damai Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary under the Brunei government's Strategic Development Capital Fund, owning 70 percent and 30 percent of the shares respectively.
Hengyi's investment into PMB is the largest foreign direct investment in Brunei from China so far, which is bound to help the Southeast Asian country to upgrade its industries, alleviate its dependence on oil export and also to boost the economic and trade cooperation between Brunei and China.
