PKR promises to scale down and move RAPID project to Kertih

File photo of last Sunday’s Himpunan Hijau Pengerang Lestari protest rally in Pengerang. — Picture by Saw Siow Feng

PETALING JAYA, Oct 5 — PKR said today it plans to scale down Petronas’ RM60 billion petrochemical project and move it from Pengerang in Johor to Kertih in Terengganu if it wins in the coming general election.

Critics of the controversial Refinery and Petrochemicals Development (RAPID) project have said that it will cause thousands of villagers in Pengerang to lose their homes and livelihoods. 

“Why (do we) need to take the land of villagers in Pengerang when we have enough land in Kertih?” Wong Chen, PKR’s chairman of investment and trade bureau, asked at a press conference at the party’s headquarters here.

“If (it’s) built at Pengerang, what’s the fate of the petrochemical industry in Kertih? Will it be able to function as usual?” he asked.

Kertih, a two-hour drive from the Terengganu capital of Kuala Terengganu, is a base for Petronas’ oil platform operations and also houses several petroleum refineries.

PKR also plans to scale down the RAPID project as both China and India, Malaysia’s main export markets, are building bigger refinery plants in their own countries, Wong said.

“We should build a refinery plant with a capacity of 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) compared to the proposed RAPID capacity of 300,000 bpd.

“We should consider that China and India are building their own plants, besides facing competition from South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Egypt who are also building refinery plants for export purposes,” Wong added.

Last Sunday, people from across the country poured into Pengerang to take part in the Himpunan Hijau Pengerang Lestari rally to protest against three things — the land grab, the loss of livelihood, and the environmental destruction. 

RAPID will see the relocation of over 3,000 people from seven villages girdling the shore of Pengerang, with only the small Chinese-majority Kampung Sungai Rengit being the only village to have escaped the government’s relocation plans thus far. 

RAPID is set to occupy over 6,424 acres of the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex’s (PIPC) 22,500 acres, which is home to some 28,000 people in the Pengerang parliamentary constituency in the southernmost tip of Johor. PIPC is a massive RM170 billion project that is expected to turn Malaysia into a mega- petrochemical hub.