Said to be the country’s largest liquid-based green-field downstream development, the project was planned to commence operations in early 2019.It has been facing delays due to issues related to residents relocation.
Petronas CEO Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin was quoted by Reuters as saying: "For the refinery, the startup will be middle of 2019. That is the current schedule."
The company was forced to carry out review and re-bid some of its engineering, procurement and construction contracts (EPC) due to a drop in oil prices over the past year.
"Commodity prices went down – it was a good time for us to go into the market for EPC contracts. We did some rebidding to get better prices," Zulkiflee added.
Consequently, the company also rephased certain petrochemical projects.
The RAPID project comprises a 300,000-barrels-per-day refinery and petrochemical complex which will produce 7.7 million tons of various products annually, including differentiated and specialty chemicals products.
