Thailand's IRPC Pcl to shut all of its plants from mid-November

(Reuters) -- Thailand's IRPC Pcl , operator of Southeast Asia's biggest integrated petrochemical complex, plans to shut all of its plants for major maintenance for 40 days from mid-November to late December, an executive said on Tuesday.

The plan, which would effectively lead to an actual shutdown of 30 days, would cut its fourth-quarter refining output to an average of 140,000 barrels per day (bpd), a senior executive for corporate planning, Atikom Terbsiri, told Reuters.

This compared with normal output of 170,000 bpd for the October-December period and down from 160,000-170,000 bpd in the third quarter.

IRPC, 37-percent owned by top Thai energy firm PTT , runs a 215,000 barrel-per-day refinery and petrochemical complex with annual capacity of about 924,000 tonnes of plastic pellets.

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(Plastemart) -- A fire, the eight this year, broke out at a refinery on Tuesday at Formosa Plastics Group (FPG)'s Mailiao petrochemical complex, that was put out in about 20 minutes, without affecting any manufacturing equipment, inflicting no harm to any person and posing no other threats. As per the management, the blaze started when transporting alkylate. Certain amount of alkymer ended up in a ditch at the plant because of the leak. Water and chemical foams were immediately used to contain and snuff out the fire. The incident occurred when the manufacturing and processing operations at the petrochemical complex were temporarily closed for inspection and equipment maintenance. FPG executives state that alkymer is a part of gasoline, but not toxic and will not release any toxic substance after burning.

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(ICIS) -- Standard & Poor's (S&P) has raised its long-term corporate credit rating and senior unsecured debt rating for Germany-based potash and salt producer Kali and Salz (K+S) to BBB+ from BBB, the ratings agency said on Thursday. S&P said K+S has posted strong credit metrics since 30 June 2010 and expects them to continue to do so in the second half of 2011 and into 2012.

S&P anticipates that K+S's earnings will remain volatile because it considers them to be highly sensitive to potash prices and volumes, it added.

However, S&P credit analyst Oliver Kroemker gave K+S a stable outlook because it ⌠reflects our view that strong demand for potash and other fertilizers, and the resulting high prices for them, should enable K+S to increase its profitability in 2011.

In August, K+S announced that its adjusted second-quarter earnings from continued operations had risen by 47.6% year on year to EUR 126.8m (USD 178.6m), while its revenues for the second quarter rose by 10.7% to EUR 1.05bn year on year, on the back of strong demand in its fertilizer business.


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(Platts) -- Thailand's Indorama Ventures, or IVL, has sold out spot polyethylene terephtalate for September, said a company source Wednesday, adding that its plants in Indonesia, Thailand, and China were operating at 100% of their capacities. "Demand has improved this week. We are only offering to some regular customers," said the source.

The company has a 180,000 mt/year plant in Lopburi, Thailand; a 86,400 mt/year plant in Tangerang, Indonesia; and a 276,000 mt/year plant in Guangdong, China.VL will start offering October cargoes from next week.

Following a two-week lull, sales in Southeast Asia have gone up, with two PET producers selling at least 1,000 mt of product each last week.

A source at another PET producer in Southeast Asia said customers were holding back on purchases due to relatively high PET prices over the past weeks, on high feedstock purified terephthalic acid prices.

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(BASF) -- BASF was today again included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World). The company received special recognition by the analysts for its sustainability engagement in Genetically Modified Organisms, Product Stewardship, Environmental Management System, Climate Strategy and Risk & Crisis Management. The DJSI World is the most important sustainability index and represents the top 10 percent of the largest 2,500 companies in each industry included in the Dow Jones Global Index.


BASF shares are included in the DJSI World for the eleventh year in succession. In 2008, the company led the Dow Jones Sustainability Index as best performing chemical company. The listed companies have to demonstrate continuous improvement every year with regards to sustainability and are assessed by analysts from Sustainable Asset Management Group (SAM).

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