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(Yarns and Fibers) -- Royal Dutch
Shell's new Singapore ethylene cracker is operating at around 70 percent of
capacity and is using some 30,000 tonnes a month or more of naphtha as
feedstock, traders said on Wednesday.
The unit will run at more than 80 percent of capacity soon, they added. The
naphtha volumes used at Shell is not huge, but it has pushed up market sentiment
as the 800,000 tonne-per-year (tpy) cracker was designed to use mainly heavy oil
as feedstock. It is coming a time when Thailand also needs additional naphtha
feedstocks for the country's petrochemical facilities.
Shell has recently been aggressively picking up Indian spot naphtha cargoes
-- almost 715,000 tonnes for March to June loadings -- leading to talk that this
could be due to its use of the light fuel for the petrochemical plant. But some
traders said this has more to do with its trading positions.
The oil major hardly bought any spot volumes from India for January or
February loadings. But they have a three-month term contract with Mangalore
Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) for 30,000 tonnes each for
December-February lifting from New Mangalore port.
Japanese trading house Itochu has often been the dominant buyer of Indian
spot cargoes, as it has limited term Middle Eastern supplies, traders said.But
Shell overtook Itochu as the leading buyer of Indian cargoes for April-loading
cargoes, snapping up nearly 300,000 tonnes compared to the 100,000 tonnes it
bought for March loading from India.
Shell, which dropped a 12-month contract with Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) for
December-November due to high prices, had bought around 185,000 tonnes of Indian
naphtha for May.
mrcplast.com |
