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NPC - Thailand
National Petrochemical Public Company Limited, or NPC PLC, or National Petrochemical Company Limited, or NPC, was the national petrochemical flagship company of Thailand. Initially registered as a Thai private company on 23 February, 1984, or B.E. 2527, under the name of National Petrochemical Company Limited, or NPC. NPC was established after explorations in the Gulf of Thailand yielded an abundant amount of rich natural gas reserves.
After the discovery of natural gas in the Gulf of Thailand in 197X, the government began studying the development of the oil and gas industries in Thailand. The Eastern Seaboard Development Program was initiated as a part of the 5th National Economic and Social Development Plan, in an attempt to optimize the utilization of natural gas for the development of Thailand's economy. The Petroleum Authority of Thailand finished the construction of the Gas Separation Plant in Map Ta Phut, Rayong Province, in 1984, and it came began commercial operations in 1985 and transported fuel gas to EGAT's Power Plants.
But rich natural gas (or wet gas) has much more value than to be used as fuel gas. Subsequent studies revealed that the gas from the Gulf of Thailand has a rich content of hydrocarbons which can be used as feedstocks for the production of petrochemical building block products such as ethylene and propylene, and can add value to natural gas by 10-20 times. Thus a study was officially initiated to consider the establishment of a petrochemical complex in Thailand. Soon thereafter, the studies were completed and revealed that, indeed, the creation of a petrochemical industry was feasible. Thus, National Petrochemical Company Limited was formed and formally registered with the main purpose of constructiing and operating Thailand's First National Petrochemical Complex (also known as NPC-1) in Map Ta Phut, Rayong province, to produce ethylene and propylene to send to downstream plants that were a part of NPC-1 which consisted of the plants of TPE, TPC, and HMC. Also in the scheme of NPC-1 was the private petrochemical plant belonging to TPI, situated about 30 kilometers further away to the EAST of the NPC-1 Complex, that was connected to NPC-1 via a product pipeline.
NPC in the first year of its inception had 8 supporting entities as major shareholders that consisted of :
- The Petroleum Authority of Thailand : 49%
- The Siam Cement Company Limited, via the Thai Polyethylene Company Limited (TPE)
- The Thai Petrochemical Industry Company Limited (TPI)
- The Thai Plastic And Chemicals Company Limited (TPC)
- The HMC Polymers Company Limited (HMC)
- The International Finance Corporation (IFC, a member of the World Bank Group)
- The Bangkok Industrial Gas Company Limited (BIG)
- The Bureau of the Royal Household : 2%
The total investment cost of NPC's Olefins Plant and general facilities was altogether around 350 million United States Dollars.
NPC began Commercial Operations of it's Olefins Plant in 1992, and on Tuesday 23 January, 1992, the Greatest Day for NPC and Thailand's National Petrochemical Industry took place. His Majesty King Bhumipol Adulyadej Rama 9, presided over the Inauguration Ceremony of the First National Petrochemical Complex, with Her Royal Highness Princess Sirindhorn also in attendance at NPC's Olefins Plant in the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate, Rayong Proovince. His Majesty the King and Her Royal Highness graced the Olefins Plant of NPC for a total of 8 hours until their departure for Chitrlada Palace at 10.40 PM via the Royal Helicopter. This day shall forever remain in the memories of all NPC staff who were present.
Initially, NPC's olefins production accounted for 290,000 tons of ethylene and 35,000 tons of propylene per year and was also producing utilities both to use in the Olefins Plant and also to send to the adjacent downstream plants that included power, water, and steam under different conditions and specifications. At the onset, the sales of Olefins to the downstream plants did not go well, customers were not offtaking the products as planned, and NPC began facing difficulties making monthly installments to the financial institutions who granted the construction loans. Prices of petrochemical products were on a decline as well, but things changed when the Gulf War broke out - oil and gas prices sky-rocketed to an all time high and global petrochemicals prices followed suit.
The Oil Crisis gave NPC a very important lesson which were to have in place various business and operational alternatives in case business trends are not favorable. One such facility was the Fluid Loading/Unloading Facilities and Buffer Tank Farm, that was completed in 1994 and featured a 4 kilometer-long pipeline bridge (the longest in Asia at that time) with berthing terminals for ships from 5000-2500 DWT and a tank farm to facilitate import/export and also to service customers.
But NPC did not stop there. Plant Expansion and De-bottlenecking were carried out to increase production and many improvements made to the production process and plant maintenance process. Improvements in all business facets were also carried out.
NPC became listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand in 2000
