(Reuters) - Formosa Petrochemical Corp. will shut a 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) crude distillation unit and two secondary units for planned maintenance at its 540,000 bpd refinery in Taiwan from December. The shutdown of the refinery could place some pressure on gas oil and kerosene stocks as December is usually the peak demand period for the fuel as the region's top oil consumers China and Japan use it as heating fuel for winter.
The maintenance at CDU No. 2, a vacuum distillation unit (VDU) of 80,000 bpd capacity and a 52,000 bpd VGO hydrotreating unit, will last for 40 days from the start of December, a company spokesman said on Friday.
Formosa restarted a third CDU at its refinery early September after the refinery was shut for safety reasons following a fire in end-July at a secondary unit that damaged some infrastructure, including power cables.
Formosa has also restarted the second of two residual fluid catalytic crackers (RFCC) this week after a prolonged shutdown since the end-July fire. Both RFCCs are of equal capacity at 84,000 bpd.