With the success of the SRC, Ling was named supply and trading manager in 1981. By then, BP had
already concluded it would have to shut down the 28,000 b/d Pasir Panjang refinery which could no
longer compete. It could not be expanded given the land constraint while the plant’s industrial character
was starting to look out of place in an increasingly residential neighbourhood.
Ling asked his management to hold off making the decision. Drawing on his Pertamina contacts from
the lubricant years, he proposed the refinery to stop processing expensive Middle East crude and
switch to using a blend of less costly and better quality crude oil from Indonesia. He pushed through
a revamp of the refinery by installing heating coils in the tanks to process a concoction of crude oils
sourced from numerous small fields in Indonesia. The refinery’s economics improved significantly, and
it was allowed to operate for another decade before its eventual to close in 1996.
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