The terminal is being developed by a joint venture between Dutch oil and chemicals storage provider Vopak (49%) and Malaysian terminal operator Dialog (51%), Pengerang Terminals Sdn. Bhd., which will also operate the facility once it is completed. The two partners own the facility through a second joint venture with the Johor government, which owns 10%.

The terminal will initially have a capacity of 1.3 million cubic meters of storage, with plans for a further 1 million cu m in a later expansion of the project’s first phase. A Vopak official said in April that work on the terminal had commenced, with the cost of the project pegged at $620 million.

The spokesman said Friday that the first part of the terminal, covering 432,000 cu m of storage for clean products, was on track for January 2014 start-up. The terminal’s initial six berths, including one that can serve VLCCs, would also be ready by January 2014, he added.

A second part, with a further 432,000 cu m of clean storage, will follow six months later. All of that storage would be fully flexible for use for lights ends and middle distillates – naphtha, gasoline, gasoil and jet fuel.

The final part of the first phase, with 420,000 cu m of storage for crude oil, would then be ready for January 2015. Though those storage tanks could be used for fuel oil, dirty products are not part of the scope of the project initially, the spokesman said.

Instead, the project partners are looking to create Southeast Asia’s first independent crude oil storage facility. A Vopak official said in April that the facility would allow clients to store crude oil and break bulk, as well as blend crude up to the specifications of the refineries they serve.

Malaysia’s Petronas is planning to build a 300,000 b/d refinery and petrochemical complex in the same area, at a cost of $20 billion. The RAPID project, as it is known, will include a naphtha cracker with a capacity to produce 3 million mt/year of ethylene, propylene and olefins; a petrochemicals and polymer complex that will produce differentiated and highly specialized chemicals; and an LNG import facility to support the energy needs of the complex.

That complex may be linked to Pengerang in the second phase of the terminal project, with both oil and LNG storage envisaged for the further expansion. The Pengerang partners are also hoping to encourage more refineries to come on board, the spokesman said Friday. Taiwan’s CPC has already been reported as a possible future refinery partner.