The Hengyi Industries petrochemicals joint venture between China and Brunei has announced that its atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit has successfully produced its first sample quantities of petrochemical products.

This is an important step towards full commercial operation for the Hengyi oil refinery and petrochemical project, which is located at Pulau Muara Besar (PMB), an industrial park on an island in Brunei Bay.

Hengyi Industries is a joint venture between China's Zhejiang Hengyi Group and Damai Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary under the Brunei government's Strategic Development Capital Fund, owning 70% and 30% of the shares respectively.

The Hengyi investment at PMB is the largest foreign direct investment in Brunei from China to date, helping Brunei move downstream and add value locally in the petrochemicals segment.

Chen Liancai, CEO of Hengyi Industries, explained to Xinhua that the Hengyi project is being developed in two phases. The first phase takes up 276 hectares of land and a total investment of US$3.45 billion.

The first phase has a processing capacity of eight million tons of crude oil per year. The crude oil needed for the project will be provided partially by Brunei, and the rest will be imported from the surrounding oil-producing countries.

Phase two could involve investment of as much as US$12 billion, increasing processing capacity to 22 million tonnes per year by 2022.