CAPITAL: Singapore

MONETARY UNIT: Dollar

REFINING CAPACITY: 1.172 million b/cd

OIL PRODUCTION: None

OIL RESERVES: None

GAS RESERVES: None

The Asian economic downturn hit Singapore refiners hard.

Three of Singapore`s four refiners reduced refinery throughput in September 1998.

REFlecting the worsening regional market for oil products, Shell Eastern Petroleum (Pte.) Ltd., Singapore`s largest refiner, cut output at its Bukom refinery to 212,000 b/d in September 1998, compared with a capacity of 405,000 b/d.

Mobil Oil Singapore Pty. Ltd. reduced crude runs at its 300,000 b/d Jurong refinery by about 10%, following a 6% cut earlier.

Singapore Refining Co. (SRC), a combine of BP and Caltex Petroleum Corp., cut its 285,000 b/d Pulau Merlimau refinery to 230,000 b/d.

REFiners said crude processing margins were negative at all refineries, whether they were basic plants or ones with secondary upgrading units. Only plants running condensate or NGL were profitable.

But the Asian financial crisis did not delay one of the world`s most ambitious projects. Singapore`s Economic Development Board (EDB) was continuing with its plan to merge seven islands into a site for a huge petrochemical complex.

The $4.2 billion project would increase its land use to 3,459 acres from 2,417 acres. A $140 million causeway linking the island was completed in 1998.

Jurong Island would become the country`s flagship chemical complex, sporting Mobil`s $800 million naphtha cracker as well as other petrochemical plants and refineries.

The Mobil plant, in which EDB had 20%, would produce 800,000 metric tons/year of ethylene and 400,000 tons/year of propylene. The project would proceed when sales pacts were secured, so start-up was not expected until 2003.

Exxon Corp. was building a $2 billion petrochemical plant on Jurong Island. The facility would produce mainly ethylene and propylene. Three other facilities would produce other petrochemical derivatives.

Texaco Inc. and Messer Griesheim GmbH formed a joint venture, Singapore Syngas Pte. Ltd., to own and operate a gasification plant on Jurong Island. It would supply carbon monoxide to an acetic acid plant being built by Hoechst Group`s Celanese unit. That plant was due completion in mid-2000.

The Singapore Syngas plant, to begin operations late in 2000, would gasify 600 metric tons/day of low-value refinery feedstocks from Singapore Refining Co.`s (SRC) 270,000 b/d refinery on nearby Pulau Merlimau. The plant would produce 900 tons/day of CO, which Celanese would buy, and up to 25 MMscfd of high-purity hydrogen, which SRC would buy.

CRI International, a Shell Oil Co. subsidiary, was planning a $50-70 million expansion of its Tuas catalyst plant in Singapore.

Singapore`s Keppel Fels Ltd., an independent power producer and drilling rig fabricator, joined with CMS Energy Corp. of the U.S. to bid for 60% of state utility company Tuas Power Ltd.

The Singapore government offered to sell the majority interest in the firm, which was building power plants worth about $3 billion.