TPPI plant to be completed in 21 months

The Jakarta Post Jakarta

After a five-year delay, the construction of East Java petrochemical plant PT Trans Pacific Petrochemical Indonesia (TPPI) will be resumed immediately and is projected to be completed in 21 months, according to a senior official.

President of state oil and gas company Pertamina, Ariffi Nawawi said on Sunday that the project would be resumed in early 2004. Pertamina partly owns the petrochemical plant.

Last week, Japan's Mitsui & Co. and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation agreed to provide some US$400 million in financing for the project. Ariffi signed the transaction in Tokyo.

The construction project, located in Tuban area, was halted in 1998 following the regional economic crisis.

The plant is designed with an installed production capacity of 500,000 tons of paraxylene per year, as well as 100,000 tons of orthoxylene and toluene per year.

Ariffi had said earlier that the resumption of the TPPI project was crucial for the country, as it would create jobs and save the huge amount of foreign exchange reserve used to import petrochemical products for various domestic industries.