Japan's Chiyoda Corp. is provisionally looking to set up a company with Malaysian and Thai partners this April to build and operate a $2 billion, 2 million b/d oil pipeline across peninsular Malaysia.
Construction is to begin in 1999, with the 1 million b/d first phase of the pipeline slated to be in service in 2001. Chiyoda's partners are Malay- sian developer East West Bridge and Thai engineering firm Ital Thai Co.
The project, in which the semi-governmental Japan International Development Organization and Malaysian and Thai governments as well as private companies are participating, has been deemed profitable during the first stage of a feasibility study.
Extending from Sai Buri, Thailand, to Alor Setar, Malaysia, the 190-km. pipeline will carry Persian Gulf crude to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries in East Asia.
The project includes construction of forty-eight 100,000 kl. storage tanks on both the Thai and Malaysian coasts.
Officials say that the purpose of the pipeline is to bypass the Straits of Malacca, the main transit route from the Persian Gulf to East Asia.
They add that the new firm intends to solicit both oil majors and state-run oil companies in the Middle East to join the project.
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