MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa, the largest supplier of plastics in Taiwan, is in plans to shut its No 3 naphtha cracker for maintenance turnaround, reported Apic-online.
A Polymerupdate source in Taiwan informed that the plant is likely to be shut on August 15, 2014. It is likely to remain off-stream for around 45 days.
Located in Mailiao, Taiwan, the plant has an ethylene capacity of 1.2 million mt/year, propylene capacity of 600,000 mt/year and butadiene capacity of 180,000 mt/year.
As wrote before, in November 2013, Formosa Plastics was seeking United States permits for a USD2 billion expansion of its Texas operations as cheaper natural gas prices make US production more competitive. The company asked federal and state environmental regulators to approve plans for an ethane cracker unit and downstream derivatives. The investment is bigger than was previously planned by Formosa Plastics as of February 2012, when it said it would spend USD1.7 billion to build two factories and a polyethylene plastics plant in Texas.
Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company's plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
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