Malaysia's state-run Petronas will build a $20 billion integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex that will raise  the country's total refining capacity by half to 935,300 barrels per day (bpd), the oil company said on Friday.

The new development in southern Johor state, to be known as the Refinery and Petrochemicals Integrated Development (RAPID), is expected to be commissioned by the end of 2016, will put Malaysia on track to vie with neighbouring Singapore, which has a refining capacity of about 1.3 million bpd.

It would expand Petronas' petrochemicals business and spur growth of Malaysia's downstream oil and gas sector, the company said in a statement. The project is part of a government plan to attract $444 billion in investments over 10 years to boost economic growth.

"Looking ahead, RAPID is expected to attract significant investments from international companies within and further down the business value chain, underscoring our long-standing practice of forming mutually beneficial partnerships," Petronas president and chief executive officer Shamsul Azhar Abbas said in the statement.

The RAPID project, which is at the detailed feasibility study stage, will comprise a crude oil refinery, a naphtha cracker and a petrochemicals and polymer complex.

The crude oil refinery will have a processing capacity of 300,000 bpd for the production of petroleum products such as gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and fuel oil, Petronas said.

It would also have a three million ton per year (tpy) naphtha cracker and petrochemical derivatives complexes focusing on synthetic rubbers.

Petronas said the project would take its total refining capacity to 748,000 bpd and its domestic refining capacity to 623,000 bpd. It would bring its petroleum products output to 140,200,905 barrels per year.

To support the development of RAPID, Petronas said it would consider building a new liquefied natural gas receiving and re-gasification terminal within the RAPID facility.