Palm | Kelapa Sawit

Pengerang fishermen to get RM12mil grant
The Star 22 Jan 13;

JOHOR BARU: A RM12mil allocation to upgrade fishing boats in Pengerang here is expected to be disbursed to eligible fishermen by year's end.

“There are about 520 fishermen in Pengerang who have been affected by the US$20bil (RM60bil) Petronas Refinery and Petro-chemical Integrated Development (Rapid) project.

“We hope that the allocation will enable these fishermen to upgrade their boats to venture further out to the sea,” said Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Committee chairman Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi.

He said this to reporters after delivering his New Year message to officials from the state Agriculture Department at the Glulam Gallery here yesterday.

Abdul Aziz said the Fisheries Department had submitted a working paper on the allocation.

On a separate matter, he dismissed allegations that the fish and seafood supply in Johor would be affected by the Rapid project.

“Only 3% of the fishermen in the state conduct fishing activities in Pengerang and they are traditional fishermen who only travel two to three nautical miles off the coast,” he said.

He said the only major issue for the fishermen would be the relocation of the main jetty.

“This has caused some inconvenience but the Government has already allocated RM33mil to relocate the jetty from Sg Renggit to Sg Musuh,” he said.

Abdul Aziz added that the new location was a distance from the Rapid project.

The Rapid project is poised to make Pengerang a major oil and gas hub in the Asia-Pacific region.

The first phase of the project covers 2,428ha and will need about 40,000 contract workers.

Once completed, the two refineries will be able to process 450,000 barrels of oil per day.

BASF, Petronas scrap plans to deepen partnership
Reuters 21 Jan 13;

* End plans for joint site in Pengerang, Malaysia
* BASF says both remain committed to Kuantan site
* Deals blow to BASF's quest to boost Asia business (Adds background)

FRANKFURT, Jan 21 (Reuters) - BASF and Malaysian state-owned oil and gas firm Petronas have decided not to pursue an extension of their partnership to a second specialty chemicals plant after failing to agree on terms.

"Petronas and BASF concluded that it would be in their mutual interest to terminate the HoA (Heads of Agreement) as both parties were unable to come to an agreement on the terms and conditions," the German chemicals group said on Monday.

The two companies scrapped their plans to build a new plant in Pengerang, Johor, Malaysia, but they remain committed to the expansion of an existing joint site in Kuantan, also Malaysia, BASF added.

Both expansion projects combined would have cost BASF 1 billion euros ($1.33 billion) in investments, but the company declined to say how much it would have spent just on the Pengerang facility.

"We expect BASF to look into other Asian markets (perhaps even more in China) to look for alternative investments, as the overall Asian chemical markets remains the key growth region for the next decade," said Baader Bank analyst Norbert Barth.

The company is seeking to lift its proportion of sales from emerging markets to 45 percent from 34 percent by 2020 but has said that finding suitable takeover targets in Asia was difficult.

About 40 percent of global chemicals production takes place in Asia, more than in any other world region. But the region accounts for only 20 percent of BASF's sales and the group aims to lift that proportion to 25 percent by 2020.

BASF aims for sales from Asian customers to grow 8 percent per year through 2020, eyeing faster growth there than the 4.5 percent expected in Europe and 5.5 percent in North America.

The group was more successful on Monday in its bid to shore up its nutrition business to reduce its reliance on the business cycle as it won over enough Pronova shareholders to secure control over the Norwegian fish-oils maker. ($1 = 0.7524 euros) (Reporting by Frank Siebelt and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)