(ICIS) -- Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC) is going ahead with a major turnaround at its largest cracker in Mailiao on 15 August, although a fire over the weekend led to a complete shutdown of its 540,000 bbl/day refinery and related facilities at the site, company officials and traders said on Tuesday. With the refinery down, FPCC has declared a force majeure on all petroleum products from the Mailiao complex, they said.
FPCC will shut the 1.2 m tonne/year No 3 cracker as planned for a turnaround that will last 45 days, said a company spokesperson, confirming an earlier ICIS report.
However, ⌠there is no schedule for the restart of the No 1 cracker, he added. The 700 KTa No 1 cracker has been shut since 12 May.
The fire that broke out in late July at a propylene pipeline in Mailiao prompted the shutdown of the refinery, along with FPCC's 520 KTa Group II base oil plant and 190 KTa methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) plant.