(Platts) - "Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez instructed state petrochemicals manufacturing company Pequiven to proceed with a much-heralded project to set up a petrochemicals manufacturing operation at Western Venezuela's Centro de Refinacion de Paraguana (CRP), the world's largest refining complex, in Falcon, he said during a televised address.

'There we will set up a plant of aromatics, using the streams from the refinery,' Chávez continued. The speech followed his return from a week-long state visit to Russia, Belarus and Iran. He did not say when construction would start. 'It is endless, so to speak, the arch of products (resulting) and the possibilities for downstream development.'

Pequiven first announced the petrochemicals-on-CRP plan, which is the first project of its kind in Venezuela that uses natural gas as the raw material for petrochemicals, in 2005 and said such a project would cost an estimated $10bn. However, the petrochemicals' maker at the time was still a subsidiary of state oil company PDVSA, and PDVSA brass never authorized the project, sources said.

In 2006, after the spin off that resulted in an independent Pequiven, company president Saul Ameliach relived the project, saying India's eliance group had approached it to partner in the refinery streams' project.

CRP is essentially three refineries (Bajo Grande in Zulia, Amuay and Cardon in Falcon state) interconnected and working together. Installed capacity for CRP is about 960,000b/d".