Hengyi Industries has awarded Honeywell Technologies the process-technology package for Phase II of its Pulau Muara Besar (PMB) refinery and petrochemical complex in Brunei, a project designed to lift crude-processing capacity to roughly 20 million tonnes/year from current throughputs of 8-9 million tpy.

Honeywell confirmed the award in an Oct. 14 release. Neither party disclosed the contract value, and Honeywell gave no capacities for the individual units to be added.

For practitioners tracking licensing awards in Asia-Pacific downstream, the scope is broad. Honeywell will supply technology licensing, engineering, proprietary equipment, catalysts, and technical support across six process lines:

• CCR Platforming
• Unicracking
• Unionfining
• Butamer
• C4 Oleflex
• An aromatics complex based on light-desorbent Parex technology

Once the units are online, Honeywell said the planned hydrocracking, aromatics, and dehydrogenation installations will rank among the largest of their kind. Treat that claim as the vendor's characterization; unit capacities remain undisclosed. The takeaway: this is a full-license award across fuels and petrochemicals, not a piecemeal services deal.

What does the expansion change for the PMB complex?

The capacity jump is the story. Phase II more than doubles crude throughput at a site that currently runs 8-9 million tpy, supporting Brunei's stated policy of extracting more value from its upstream resources and widening its downstream base.

The technology mix points to where the value is expected to come from. Hydrocracking and aromatics capacity, paired with C4 Oleflex dehydrogenation, signals a shift toward petrochemical yield rather than pure fuels output. Honeywell said its technologies are intended to improve the integrated complex's efficiency and reliability while enabling greater production of higher-value petrochemicals.

Hengyi Industries, a subsidiary of Zhejiang Hengyi Group, is the operator. The complex sits in Pulau Muara Besar Industrial Park.

What is the timeline?

Mechanical completion is targeted for yearend 2028, with startup anticipated in early 2029, according to Hengyi Industries. That schedule gives engineering, procurement, and construction contractors roughly a four-year window from the technology award.

Phase II builds directly on an established relationship. For Phase I, Honeywell supplied process technologies, engineering design, equipment, catalysts, and adsorbents, along with operator training and technical services for startup and continuing operations. The takeaway: the licensor already knows the site, which typically shortens integration risk on revamps and expansions of this kind.

How does solar fit into the operating base?

The award follows another milestone at PMB this year. Hengyi commissioned the first stage of Project SINAR — Sustainable Integration of Natural and Renewable Energy — which supplies solar power to the refinery.

The company announced the startup in February and offered two operating numbers:

• Stage 1 can generate up to 84,000 MWh/year of power for operations, meeting about 7% of the complex's energy requirements.
• The solar project is projected to cut carbon emissions by up to 137,180 tonnes/year.

Those figures matter for anyone modeling the complex's operating costs and emissions profile ahead of the Phase II ramp. A 7% renewable share at current throughput will dilute as capacity more than doubles, unless later SINAR stages scale with it — a question the company has not yet answered publicly.

The watch items

Three dates and disclosures will define this project over the next four years: the EPC award schedule, which Hengyi has not announced; the mechanical-completion milestone at yearend 2028; and the unit capacities, which would let analysts size the aromatics and hydrocracking additions against regional benchmarks.

Until then, the confirmed facts are the license scope, the 20 million tpy target, and a startup window in early 2029.