Mobil Corp. plans to build a 600,000 ton/year chemical aromatics plant in Singapore and upgrade its refinery there to supply feedstock for the new plant.
The company is targeting East Asian and Southeast Asian markets, where aromatics demand has been growing at a 5-10%/year clip to satisfy growing production of polyester, nylon, and polystyrene.
Mobil let contract to UOP Inc. for design engineering of the aromatics complex and is assessing bids for detailed engineering, procurement, and construction.
The project would be complete in early 1993.
Production will be 300,000 tons/year of paraxylene, 175,000 tons/year of benzene, and smaller volumes of orthoxylene and aromatic solvents.
Mobil also is considering converting the benzene to cyclohexane.
Meantime, Mobil's planned upgrading of its 230,000 b/d refinery at Jurong will boost gasoline production by 8,000 b/d to help meet increasing gasoline demand in the region. It will add a 38,000 b/d continuous catalytic reformer, associated naphtha pretreating facilities, and a gas plant at the refinery.
Mobil Chemical Co. subsidiary Mobil Petrochemical International, which markets petrochemicals in the Far East, will market the Jurong plant's aromatics production.
Mobil Singapore Pte. Ltd. operates the Jurong complex.
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