S Korea's LG Chem to shut Daesan cracker in mid-March '11

SINGAPORE (ICIS) -- South Korea's LG Chem plans to shut its 760,000 tonne/year naphtha cracker in Daesan for turnaround and expansion works in the middle of March 2011, a company source said on Thursday.

The cracker is expected to be taken off line for a month, said the source, who added that the ethylene capacity would be increased to around 900,000 tonnes/year after the debottlenecking work.

LG Chem also runs a 1m tonne/year naphtha cracker in Yeosu, which is not slated for maintenance next year, he added.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- Majority of French refineries and two major oil ports have decided to carry on with a strike against government plans to overhaul pensions. These strikes have hampered the export of polyethylene, as per Platts.

An impact currently seen in the low density polyethylene market which is getting tighter now, as deliveries out of LyondellBasell's Aubette unit have been affected because polymer transportation has been affected by the strike. The 320,000 tpa Aubette plant continues to run normally. Meanwhile LyondellBasell's refinery Berre L'Etang and Ineos' Lavera were reported to have extended the strike.


ExxonMobil's second refinery in France, Port-Jerome Gravenchon, did not join the strike and has continued operations and fuel supplies.

Ethylene vessels are not moving appropriately out of France, resulting in delays affecting the Tarragona region.

MRC

SHANGHAI (ICIS) -- China's Xinjiang Tianye Group Co achieved on-spec production at its new 400,000 tonne/year carbide-based polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in China's northwestern Xinjiang province on 6 October, a company source said on Thursday.

With the start-up of the new plant, Xinjiang Tianye's PVC production capacity has increased from 700,000 tonnes/year to 1.1m tonnes/year, making it the largest PVC producer in China, according to the source.

Meanwhile, the company also achieved on-spec production at its new 300,000 tonne/year caustic soda unit in late September, said the source.

The new plant, which is also located at the same site in Xinjiang, has increased the company's caustic soda capacity from 600,000 tonnes/year to 900,000 tonnes/year, the source added.

MRC

MOSCOW (ICIS) -- Russia's major producers of polymers will go ahead with their plans to build new plants, company officials said at the Russian Polymers Summit on Thursday.

In 2012, Sibur aims to start up its new 500,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) facility at its Tobolsk-Neftekhim subsidiary, as well as a new 330,000 tonne/year polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant at Kstovo, said Sergey Merzlyakov, vice president and head of Sibur's plastics and organic synthesis business unit.

Sibur is also considering building a new 200,000 tonne/year PP plant in the Nizhny Novgorod region, as well as a major gas-chemical complex in Russia's Far East to produce 1m tonnes/year of polyethylene (PE) and 720,000 tonnes/year of PP, Merzlyakov said.

The projects are expected to come on stream after 2016, he added.

Major petrochemical producer Nizhnekamskneftekhim (NKNKh) plans to build a new 400,000 tonne/year ethylene (C2) facility, said Evgeniy Tsyganov, deputy CEO of NKNKh.

The plant's PE output would reach its capacity of 230,000 tonnes/year by the end of 2011, Tsyganov said.

Russian oil major Lukoil will prioritise the development of its petrochemical arm, according to Alexander Rappoport, Lukoil's head of gas and energy coordination and sales of the petrochemical and gas products department.

By 2016, Lukoil aims to build a major gas-chemical complex in southern Russia's Stavropol region to produce up to 600,000 tonnes/year of PE and 300,000 tonnes/year of PP, Rappoport said.

The complex, designed to utilise natural gas from Lukoil's offshore gas fields in the Caspian Sea, would include a gas processing plant and new PE/PP production facilities in Budyennovsk, Stavropol region, near Lukoil's existing PE/PP plant.

Lukoil has estimated the cost at some $2.6bn.

MRC

SINGAPORE (ICIS) -- Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp (FCFC) is currently ramping up production at its 600,000 tonne/year styrene monomer (SM) unit in Mailiao, which was restarted last week after a scheduled maintenance shutdown, said a company source on Friday.

The unit was taken off line in late August and was initially slated to restart in late September.

The restart was pushed back to early October due to shortage of feedstock ethylene, the source said. The 700,000 tonne/year cracker - owned by FCFC parent Formosa Petrochemical - that supplies feedstock to the SM plant has been down since July.

FCFC also operates two other SM units at the site with capacities of 250,000 tonnes/year and 350,000 tonnes/year.

MRC