BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) and Malay oil and petrochemicals producer Petronas (Kuala Lumpur; www.petronas.com) have decided not to pursue their planned 60:40 specialty chemicals joint venture within Petronas’ Refinery & Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project at Pengerang, Johor / Malaysia. The project, announced in March 2012 – see Plasteurope.com of 09.03.2012 – was to be completed in the period between 2015 and 2018.

The two chemical giants, who together had intended to invest USD 1 bn in new production facilities, said they had concluded that it would be in their mutual interest to terminate their Heads of Agreement (HoA) for the new jv, signed in March 2012, as they had been unable to agree on terms and conditions. Despite the cancellation of the RAPID-related partnership, they stressed their commitment to continuing their existing joint venture, BASF Petronas Chemicals, based in Malaysia’s Gebeng Industrial Zone, Kuantan, Pahang.

The now defunct new partnership would have owned, developed, built and operated production facilities for a number of chemicals. Part of the investment was to be in a new superabsorbent polymers plant, and it was also planned to increase capacity at the site’s glacial acrylic acid unit. Other projects once envisaged included plants for the plasticiser feedstock isononanol; polyisobutylene; non-ionic surfactants; methanesulphonic acid and precursor materials. Rather than Malaysia, BASF evidently now intends to pursue construction of the world-scale isononanol plant in China, in partnership with Sinopec (Beijing / China; www.sinopec.com).