Spot BD prices in Asia may rebound in September-October

(ICIS) -- Spot prices of butadiene (BD) in Asia may rebound in September or October as supply of the material will tighten, with a number of crackers in Asia and the US due to undergo maintenance during this period, industry sources said on Tuesday.

Some producers expect BD prices to rise above USD 4.000/tonne (EUR 2.760/tonne) towards the fourth quarter, after shedding USD 450/tonne over the past month, they said.

BD prices were last assessed at USD 3.800-3.850/tonne CFR (cost and freight) NE (northeast) Asia in the week ending 12 August, ICIS data showed.

In Asia, Shell's 800 KTa cracker in Bukom Island, Singapore and Formosa Petrochemical Corp's (FPC) 1.2m tonne/year No 3 cracker in Mailiao, Taiwan, are due for turnaround in mid-August.
Shell's Bukom cracker has a 155 KTa BD extraction unit.

MRC

(Reuters) -- Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp is ready to start up its 540,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery in stages after it was completely shut following a fire at a secondary unit end July, its spokesman said on Thursday.

But it was not immediately clear when Asia's fifth largest refinery will be able fully to restore its diesel and gasoline exports, estimated at 800 KT a month and 210-240 KT a month respectively. "We are ready for start-up on Aug. 20, but that is subject to government approval," said its spokesman.

"We will first start-up the utilities, followed by units in train one. If everything runs smoothly, we could restart all three trains in the refinery in early September." "But it is not clear when we can restore the gasoline and diesel export volumes."

Formosa operates three crude distillation units (CDUs) of equal capacity of 180,000 bpd but shut the plant for safety reasons after a fire from a propylene-recovery unit damaged some of its surrounding infrastructure including power cables and optic fibres.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- State-owned Indian Oil Corporation's (IOC) Paradip Refinery in Orissa is expected to be completed one year after the pre-decided schedule in Q1-2013. This delay could pose some tax problems for IOC. The seven year income tax holiday for the refining sector ends next year. Refineries commissioning after March 31, 2012 will not be eligible for exclusion from payment of income tax on revenues earned for first seven years of operations. IOC had previously stated that the refinery will start producing fuel by March 2012 when it will commission the primary units like Crude Distillation Unit. Secondary units will be commissioned by July, 2012, and operations stabilised by November 2012.

MRC

(Arab News) -- PetroRabigh has asked contractors for expressions of interest in building parts of an estimated USD 6-8 billion second phase of its sprawling petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia, industry sources said. The planned expansion includes engineering procurement and construction packages for seven processing units and three associated utilities projects, as per Reuters.


A total of 16 contractors in Saudi Arabia have been invited to express their interest in bidding for the ≈ RP1 ≈ package on Aug. 13. The work calls for some changes to the existing ethane cracker.
In June, PetroRabigh, a joint venture between Japan's Sumitomo Chemical and Saudi Aramco started issuing bids for Rabigh II; the expansion of the complex on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. Bids are due to close on Oct. 1.

In July, it offered a utilities package ≈ UO1 ≈ for bidding which is due by Oct. 31.
As part of the expansion, PetroRabigh would increase the capacity of the existing ethane cracker to take in an additional 30 million cubic feet per day of feedstock ethane.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has denied selling the 5% Federal Government shares in Eleme Petrolchemical Co Ltd. illegally for N4.375 bln to Inorama, as per Nigerianpilot. As per its spokesman, the bureau has always adhered to the National Council on Privatization's approval for sales of government entities, that the Eleme Petrochemical transaction was not an exception. He elaborated that EPCL was about to embark a on multi-billion dollar expansion programme, and that the inherent threat of FGN's five per cent shareholding being diluted as a result of recapitalization, necessitated the decision by the Technical Committee of the National Council on Privatisation to negotiate the price for the sale of the shares, on the understanding that the approval of the National Council on Privatisation would be obtained before closure of the transaction.

MRC