BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei, May 4 (NNN-BRUDIRECT) – After the successful unloading of the first crude oil shipment on Thursday night, the oil refinery and petrochemical plant at Pulau Muara Besar (PMB), the biggest joint venture between China and Brunei, officially enters the stage of trial operation and production, a senior Hengyi official said.
Chen Liancai, CEO of Hengyi Industries that built the plant said, with a total investment of some 3.45 billion U.S. dollars and a crude oil refining capacity of eight million tonnes per year, Hengyi’s PMB project is expected to run into full operation in the third quarter of this year.
“Part of the crude oil needed for the PMB project comes from Brunei’s own oil production, while the rest will be imported from neighbouring oil producing countries,” Chen said.
Haji Mat Suny, the country’s minister of Energy, Manpower and Industry, said that, after full operation, the PMB project is expected to increase Brunei’s GDP by 1.33 billion 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 Brunei government’s Strategic Development Capital Fund — owning 70 percent and 30 percent respectively.
Hengyi’s investment into PMB is the largest foreign direct investment into Brunei from China so far, which is due to help the southeast Asian country to upgrade its industries, alleviate its dependency on oil export and also to boost economic and trade cooperation between Brunei and China.– NNN-BRUDIRECT
