MOSCOW (MRC) -- Total, Europe’s third-largest oil company, has closed its remaining steam cracker in Carling, in the Lorraine region of eastern France, reported GV with reference to a Total spokesman.
The cracker, which was shut down on 5 Oct., is the second steam cracker closed at the site. The company shut down its first cracker in 2009.
Capacities were not available for either cracker.
The closure is part of Total's plan to adapt its Carling petrochemical platform with the development of new activities in the growing polymers and hydrocarbon markets.
As MRC wrote previously, Total intends to invest EUR160m before 2016 to adapt its petrochemical platform in Carling and to restore its competitiveness. Total plans indeed to develop new activities on the platform in the growing markets for hydrocarbon resins (Cray Valley) and for polymers, while shutting down the acutely loss-making steam cracker in the second half of 2015.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
MRC