Daqing Petrochemical takes offline its cracker along with polyethylene plants

(news.szenergy) -- Daqing Petrochemical Company (China) took its 330,000 ton/year cracker offline, together with its derivative polyethylene facilities at Heilongjiang province for scheduled maintenance.

15-day closure involved Daqing's 65,000 ton/year low density polyethylene line, 80,000 ton/year high density polyethylene three lines, as well as 85,000 ton/year linear low density polyethylene line at the plant.

Daqing Petrochemical Company is a regional branch company of Petro-China Company Limited. It is a giant-scale petrochemical complex producing oil products, chemicals, fertilizers and chemical fiber with the major raw materials of crude oil, light hydrocarbon and natural gas from Daqing oilfield.

MRC

Jinling Petrochemical Corporation takes offline its dioctyl phthalate facility

(news.szenergy) -- Jinling Petrochemical Corporation (China), a Sinopec's subsidiary, took offline its 100,000 ton/year dioctyl phthalate facility due to tight feedstock 2-ethylhexanol supply. Dioctyl phthalate plant is located in east China.

The facility being shut in February 19, is scheduled to be restarted in March 5. Jinling Petrochemical s dioctyl phthalate (DOP) inventory may continue till late February.

Due to its suitable properties and the low cost, dioctyl phthalate is widely used as a plasticizer in manufacturing of articles made of PVC. Plastics may contain 1% to 40% of dioctyl phthalate . It is also used as a hydraulic fluid and as a dielectric fluid in capacitors. Dioctyl phthalate also finds use as a solvent in glowsticks.


MRC

Crude oil price rise to affect India's textile industry

(fibre2fashion) -- The rise in prices of crude oil in the past few days, especially after the Iran crisis, has made yarn and fabric producers in India's biggest man-made fibre (MMF) hub a worried lot.

The MMF industry in Surat heavily depends on crude oil products for manufacturing various yarns like polyester filament yarns, spun yarns and blended yarns, which are used to weave fabrics.

Mr. Arun Jariwala, Chairman, Federation of Indian Art Silk Weaving Industry (FIASWI), said, "The increase in crude oil prices will affect Surat Textile industry in a manner that will increase the prices of yarn."

"Last time, when the crude oil prices went up to USD 150 per barrel, yarn prices increased by 20-25 percent. This time, while there will be no affect on cotton yarn price, the price of synthetic yarn is likely to go up by 10 percent. Hence, the costs will rise very high," he adds.

However, the impact will be relatively less on yarn manufacturers. He opines, "The yarn manufacturers will still be able to bear the increase in price of raw materials as there are few such units and they are also in a position to export."


Comparing how yarn and fabric manufacturers have fared, he says, "In the last two years, yarn exports have increased and the sector has a positive growth. But, the fabric segment has a negative growth. This means, they have exported yarn in greater quantities and at a lesser price, and thus sustaining high fabric prices in India. So, it will be difficult for the weavers and processors, and the consumers will prefer wearing cotton fabrics, rather than synthetic fabrics."

To ease the situation, Mr. Jariwala recommends, "The Government will have to decrease the excise duty not only on yarn, but also on purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and Monoethylene glycol (MEG), so that cost of production is reduced and yarn is available at a reasonable price to weavers."

MRC

Saudi Arabia's Sadaf to cut March SM allocations to India

(plastemart) -- Saudi Petrochemical Company (Sadaf), has notified contract customers in India of a decision to reduce shipments by as much as half, of styrene monomer in March.

Sadaf typically ships around 10,000-12,000 mt/month of SM to India. The reason for the reduced supply is not clear, but sources said Sadaf has not declared a force majeure on product from its 1.2 mln tpa plant in Al-Jubail.

Owned jointly by Shell Chemicals Arabia LLC and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), Sadaf was established in 1980 and began operating in 1984. The company operates from one of the world's largest and most competitive petrochemical complexes in the Al Jubail industrial zone on Saudi Arabia's eastern coast. Sadaf's six world-scale manufacturing plants produce over 4.7 million tonnes of building-block petrochemicals a year, primarily sold to customers in Asia Pacific.



MRC

Chinese polyolefin buyers cautious in their March outlook

(plastemart) -- Chinese PP and PE buyers are expressing caution in their market outlooks for March.

Buyers complained that demand for their end products has not been as good as anticipated after the holidays. They do not expect any sudden improvement in demand in April. Most buyers are predicting that PE prices will be stable to firmer in March, saying that the large increases in initial March prices announced by some overseas producers will not prove workable and that sellers will ultimately concede to smaller price hikes in order to complete their March sales.


"Demand for our end products has been disappointing after the holidays and our stock levels are mounting," complained an agricultural film manufacturer in the North. "We are unwilling to purchase beyond our needs for now as we do not want to continue piling up stocks. We believe that the new month will not bring any major change in the demand outlook."


"Converters have raised their operating rates recently, but this increase in operations has yet to translate into orders for more raw materials," commented a China based trader. "We are actively exploring the possibilities of re-exporting some of our cargoes but are finding it difficult to conclude satisfactory re-export business because of the additional time and paperwork required to close re-export deals, "the trader commented. "We expect prices to move higher for March, but we feel that producers will need to accept smaller increases than their initial hike targets in order to complete their March business," the trader told.

MRC