KOTA TINGGI, Johor: Tucked away in the southeastern tip of peninsular Malaysia is a large swathe of land with rows upon rows of oil storage tanks and cooling towers with dark smoke billowing from above.
The Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC) – which stretches across more than 20,000 acres of land and about the size of more than 15,000 football fields – is Malaysia’s biggest refining and petrochemical complex and has been touted by economists as potentially a regional oil and gas hub.
The complex forms a significant part of Pengerang, a municipality in the Kota Tinggi district in southern Johor. The area is also known for tourism – encompassing the Desaru Coast chain of hotels which draws visitors from Singapore, as well as Sungai Rengit, a town known for cheap seafood and its rustic fishing village atmosphere.
Industry experts told CNA that a large part of Pengerang is undeveloped land and that this could soon change in the short term given the area’s possible inclusion as part of the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
The vast amount of land space in Pengerang could serve as a hinterland for the expansion of oil and gas companies from the Republic while the possible revival of a renewable solar energy farm project may have the potential to increase collaboration between Malaysia and Singapore.
During a Johor state assembly sitting on May 12, chief minister Onn Hafiz Ghazi said that the state government is proposing that the geographical scope for the area within southern Johor to be gazetted for the SEZ to encompass a land mass of 3,505 square kilometres.
This is more than four times the size of Singapore.
Reference : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/johor-singapore-sez-special-economic-zone-pengerang-pipc-oil-gas-renewable-energy-4376261?cid=cna_flip_070214