Wison postpones coal gasification project in Muara Enim

By Cepi Setiadi

China based EPC contractor company Wison Engineering Ltd said it has postponed its coal to petrochemical plant project in Muara Enim, South Sumatra, pending recovery in the price of oil.

This was said by Roy Daroyni, Country General Manager International Division-Asia Pacific of Wison Engineering to Petrominco.com on Tuesday.

?The condition is changing, and our feasibility study should be revised and if we insist to revise the FS it will be difficult to reach the expected economic scale of the project, that?s why we decided to put on hold the project,? Roy said, adding that many coal to petrochemical projects around the world have also been postponed due to the current oil downturn.

?We?re just waiting for the oil industry to recover, once the oil price bounces back we will resume our project,? he said.

Wison has teamed up with PT Lion Power Energy in the US$3 billion project, which is aimed to produce 300,000 tons of olefin and 600,000 tons gasoline per year from 4 million tons of coal as the feedstock. In this project, state-owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina is also involved as the off-taker of the gasoline product.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak