Indian Oil eyes stake in Indonesia?s TubanPetro

State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is eyeing equity participation in the Indonesia petrochem firm--PT Tuban Petrochemical Industries (Tuban Petro)--which owns a giant $3 billion petrochemical complex, India's Financial Express reported.

A detailed proposal will be put up for approval in the next board meeting of the company, senior IOC officials said.

The company already has a memorandum of collaboration with the leading Indonesian oil and gas firm--PT Medco Energi International Tbk (Medco) for jointly acquiring exploration and producton (E&P) assets in India, Indonesia and third countries.

Company officials disclosed that Medco is planning to set up a green field refinery project in Indonesia and IOC has shown its initial interest to evaluate the opportunity.

Around 70% of TubanPetro is owned by the government of Indonesia. The other shareholders of the Tuban complex are Pertamina, Itochu Corporation, Tuban Petrochemicals Pte Ltd (a subsidiary of Thailand's largest conglomerate Siam Cement PCL), and Sojitz Corporation (formerly Nissho Iwai Corporation).The Tuban petrochem plant has a combined capacity of 3.6 million tonne per annum (TPA) of petrochemicals products, comprising 1 million TPA of aromatics (500,000 tonne paraxylene, 200,000 tonne benzene, and 150,000 ton toluene), 1 million TPA of naphtha, and 1.6 million TPA of kerosene and diesel.(*)