Fire broke out at aromatic plant of Petronas Chemicals

(fibre2fashion) -- Malaysia's Petronas Chemicals revealed that its aromatic plant has stopped its operations following an incident of fire in its naptha hydrotreater unit.

The fire broke out late at night on December 24 at the company's petrochemical complex in the north-eastern state of Terengganu, which is known for oil production in Malaysia.

There were no reports of casualties from the aromatic plant, which also manufactured ethylene and polyethylene. The fire was controlled within a short span of time.

Operations at the aromatic plant have been stopped temporarily as a safety measure. However, the operations at other units of the company's petrochemical complex have not been affected. An investigation into the cause of fire is still in progress. The investigation will also review the degree of damage caused by the incident of fire.

MRC

(plastemart) -- Four new projects of the National Petrochemical Company of Iran will commence production in the Iranian calendar month of Esfand (February 20 to March 20).

This will include the PVC unit of Arvand Petrochemical Complex, the largest such plant in the world with production capacity of 240,000 tpa. The other petrochemical units include the light polyethylene of Amir Kabir Complex, part of phase 2 of Fajr Complex and the hard polystyrene unit of Tabriz Complex will come on stream by the end of the Iranian calendar year (March 20).

MRC

(plastemart) -- Sri Lanka is to become a major petrochemical marketing centre for the Asian region under in line with a marketing expansion plan of Qatar Petrochemical Company (QAPCO). QAPCO plans to explore the full potential of the strategic location of the island country in marketing low-density polyethylene (LDPE) products to countries in the region.

QAPCO currently sells LDPE to over 4,500 customers in over 85 countries. QAPCO''s global marketing network comprises 28 self operated offices, of which Sri Lanka is now one and six regional warehouses." QAPCO has four offices each in China ((Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou) and India (Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Ahmadabad), two in Karachi and Lahore in Pakistan and one each in Egypt, Syria, UAE, Lebanon, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Yemen, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Philippines, Morocco and Turkey as well as an agent network to serve QAPCO''s customers.

MRC

December was also characterized by problems at the production sites. There are reports on short-term suspensions at Ufaorgsyntez (Bashneft) and Stavrolen (Lukoil). Taking into account current utilization of Russian producers' capacities, the overall output will be a bit more than 55 KT in December. At the end of the year, the overall output of PP in Russia will be at the level of about 620 KT, which is 5% more compared to 2009, according to MRC analysts.

MRC

(Styron) -- Effective January 1, 2011, or as existing contract terms allow, Styron Europe GmbH and its affiliate companies in Europe will increase the prices for all STYRON and STYRON A-TECH polystyrene grades, for all MAGNUM ABS resins and for all TYRIL SAN grades by 130 Euro per metric ton.

These price increases are applicable across the European, Middle Eastern and African regions.

MRC