Abu Dhabi wealth fund Mubadala Investment and Austrian oil and gas group OMV have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Chandra Asri Petrochemical (CAP) to explore collaboration opportunities in Indonesia’s petrochemical industry, including in CAP’s proposed cracker complex.

“We are very pleased with Mubadala and OMV’s expressed interest to explore opportunities to invest in our new world-scale petrochemical complex,” said Erwin Ciputra, Chandra Asri’s president director, adding that he looks forward to finalizing the selection of its strategic investors soon.

The Jakarta-based group is planning a second cracker complex dubbed CAP2 in Cilegon, with commercial operations scheduled by 2024. The company expects to take a final investment decision on the project during the first half of 2020.

The complex will comprise a cracker producing 1.1 million t/y ethylene and 600,000 t/y propylene, along with 160,000 t/y butadiene, 335,000 t/y benzene, 450,000 t/y HDPE, 300,000 t/y LDPE and 450,000 t/y PP.

The three companies will set up working groups to jointly define a schedule for evaluating the opportunities. Mubadala’s CEO Musabbeh Al Kaabi said the company has been active in the country for more than 10 years. “We consider Indonesia a strategic market and are confident that this MoU will result in potential opportunities for Mubadala, our portfolio companies and key partners,” he said.

OMV’s CEO, Rainer Seele added: “In our strategy we plan also to internationalize and expand our petrochemical business to growth markets. That´s why we are exploring various opportunities in areas with burgeoning demand.”

Mubadala owns 24.9% in OMV and both own stakes in major polyolefins producer Borealis, namely 64% and 36% respectively.