PETRONAS Chemicals Group (PCG) aims to start full operations at its petrochemical units at the Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) in southern Johor, Malaysia by the second half of 2021, but they are not expected to achieve full production capacity this year, senior company executives said on Thursday.

“We are gearing for full start-up in the second half of 2021. With PIC, we expect to increase our [overall] production capacity from 12.8m up to 14.6m tonnes per annum,” said PCG director/CEO Sazali Hamzah.

The company’s plants at the PIC include a 350,000 tonne/year linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) unit, which is also capable of producing metallocene LLDPE (MLLDPE) grades; a 400,000 tonne/year high density PE (HDPE) plant; and a 900,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) unit.

The site also houses an ethylene glycol plant which will be able to produce 800,000 tonnes/year of monoethylene glycol (MEG) as well as a 250,000 tonne/year isononanol (INA) unit.

Additionally, PCG and South Korean producer LG Chem last year signed a deal to build a 200,000 tonne/year nitrile butadiene latex (NBL) plant at the PIC, which is expected to start production in 2023.