Formosa Plastics may face additional closures and output losses

(Dow Jones)--Formosa Plastics Group said Monday they may face additional closures and output losses at the Mailiao petrochemical complex in southern Taiwan, after a county government ordered several facilities there to be shuttered from June 1 on safety and pollution counts following two fires earlier in May.

Formosa Plastics Corp., the flagship company of the group, said it plans to appeal the government's order, which didn't specify how long the suspension would last. Some of the facilities operated by the group's Nan Ya Plastics Corp. unit are still running, but Formosa Plastics' polyvinyl chloride plant and Formosa Petrochemical Corp.'s No. 1 naphtha cracker have been closed since the fire, the companies said.

While the extent of the closures and output losses remain unknown, Formosa Petrochemical has already deferred most of its naphtha cargoes for June to the following month, traders said earlier.

A person close to the company said Monday that the company may restart its naphtha cracker early July, but that it might not be able to do so if operations at too many downstream plants remain suspended.

MRC

(Reuters) - Asia's naphtha price was near a one-week low on Monday, while timespreads fell to their lowest in 7 and half months as a prolonged cracker shutdown in Taiwan hurt sellers. The lost demand also sent cracks to their lowest in about 2 and half months and reduced Asian prices to levels lower than in Northwest Europe.

This helps open the opportunity for traders to move Gulf and Mediterranean cargoes to the West, provided they can find buyers.

June/July swaps timespreads were at a discount of USD 2.00 a tonne, down from a premium of 25 cents, making this the first contango since Feb. 22.

MRC

(Chicago Tribune) -- About 100 residents near a petrochemical facility in southwest suburban Morris were evacuated this afternoon after a power outage stoked fears that a tanker might explode, officials said. The Grundy County Emergency Operations Center issued an emergency message that said "an incident" had been reported at the Morris Complex for LyondellBasell's Equistar business, and initially evacuated all residents within a 1.8-mile radius of the plant to the Minooka fire station at 7901 E. Minooka Rd. The message indicated that the evacuation was being undertaken as a ⌠precautionary measure.

Lightning reportedly hit one of the stacks at the facility and caused pressure in a vessel to surge, according to Minooka Village President Patrick Brennan.

Deeann Thigpen, a spokeswoman for the company, said that severe storms Sunday had knocked out power and steam to the plant and that the company was in the process of getting the plant powered up again. She said that the plant itself had not been evacuated.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Import of linear polyethylene (LLDPE) to Russia is growing along with the geography of imports, according to ICIS-MRC Price Report.

Low demand for LLDPE from the Asian market along with excessive offer from Middle East producers forced many companies to reorient their trade flows to the European markets, in particular, to Russia. In March, there appeared first offers of re-exported supplies of butene LLDPE from Asia. In April -May, prices for polyethylene for the Russian market decreased that resulted in growing number of contracts from the Russian companies.

In mid-May, there was linear polyethylene from Iran, Qatar, Libya, Brazil, Thailand in the Russian market, besides traditional European and South Korean suppliers. The range of prices is 61.000 - 64.000 RUB/t, including VAT, СРТ.

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(Lanxess) -- Saltigo, a wholly owned subsidiary of specialty chemicals company Lanxess, is looking to specifically develop its range of services beyond its core business of customized and exclusive synthesis. It wants to tap additional business in the field of non-exclusively manufactured fine chemicals. Dirk Sandri, head of Marketing & Sales in Saltigo's Agro & Fine Chemicals business line, sees this segment as an attractive growth market: ⌠With our expertise and technical possibilities we consider a doubling of our sales in the next five years in the field of multi-customer products to be realistic.

The company wants to use the Chemspec Europe tradeshow in Geneva, Switzerland as a platform for showcasing its expertise in the non-exclusive synthesis of sophisticated intermediates and important synthetic building blocks.

Saltigo now has a small but thoroughly attractive range of such fine chemicals available on an industrial scale. These include a selection of toluidine derivatives and products from phosgene chemistry, such as the chloroformates product group or the individual product carbonylbisimidazole. Owing to its years of experience, Saltigo is a recognized expert in the handling of demanding reagents such as phosgene and passes this knowledge on to its customers all over the world in the form of corresponding products.

MRC