Rayong Refinery Public Company Limited (company of PTT Group) have hired a technical consultant (UOP) to do a study on synergy benefits from the merger between RRC and ATC, the results of which came out to be very satisfactory.
As currently it is proven that the synergy is there and it is worthwhile for the two companies to merge, but a method of merger has to be selected carefully before we proceed.
As mentioned in the news the issues that need to be considered are the 25% tax benefit for RRC and loss carried forward for ATC both to be disappeared with amalgamation, while PTT would face a substantial amount of capital gained tax with aquisition method.
At the moment, financial advisors of the 3 parties (RRC, ATC, PTT) are in the process of studying the issue and it is EXPECTED that we should have the conclusion by 1.5 - 2 months.
Future plans / expansion for RRC RRC plans to complete its expansion project with ATC in Q3 2008. The expansion will increase RRC's capacity by 65 kbd to 210 kbd.
The major income streams from the project are from producing 65 kbd of petroleum products, mostly gasoline or diesel with only 4-5% of fuel oil, and 1 mm tpa of aromatics product, consisting of 60% Paraxylene (PX) and 40% Benzene (BZ).
Therefore upon the completion of project, RRC's product yield should improve slightly with higher light or middle distillates as well as diversifying into Petrochemicals business.
The complexity should also improve slightly, as more treating unit capacity is being added (Current Nelson complexity index for RRC is about 8.5). Moreover, all of the refined products will meet EURO IV standard once the final phase of the project is completed.