Mitsui plans to invest over US$1b for ammonia production plant in Tangguh

Mitsui & Co Ltd plans to develop an ammonia production facility near the Tangguh LNG project in West Papua with an investment of more than US$1 billion, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Thursday.

Director of basic chemical industries at the Ministry of Industry, Tony Tanduk, said that Mitsui last week came to the ministry to disclose its investment plan, and requested the government to provide natural gas as raw material for the ammonia production.

Tony said that the Japanese company was seeking between 95-100 MMSCFD of gas from the Tangguh project. He added that the Mitsui investment plan was in line with the government?s intention to build an integrated petrochemical complex in the area to take advantage of the gas supply from Tangguh.

?Mitsui wants to build the (ammonia) plant in Tangguh area. The government has a program to develop petrochemical industry cluster in the area, utilizing gas from Tangguh,? he said.

Industry Minister M.S. Hidayat said earlier that in developing petrochemical industry in Tangguh, the government is also cooperating with related associations to prepare an integrated petrochemical industry development plan. (*)