MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp is expected to restart a 700 Mtpy naphtha cracker in about 7 to 10 days after the unit failed to resume normal operation on Monday as intended, a company spokesman said on Tuesday, reported Reuters.
The unit was idled unexpectedly early Monday due to minor glitches and was to restart later in the same day.
But the sudden shutdown has affected some of its structure and prevented Formosa from restarting the unit as planned, the spokesman said.
Formosa, Asia's top naphtha importer, has two other larger crackers which have a combined capacity of 2.23 MMtpy, both of which are operating normally.
Steam crackers break down naphtha into petrochemical precursors such as ethylene or propylene that are used to manufacture plastics and other chemicals.
As MRC wrote before, in 2016, Formosa Petrochemical conducted maintenance works at its No.1 residual fluid catalytic cracker (RFCC) unit from early March to mid-April. Located in Mailiao, Taiwan, the No.1 RFCC unit has a propylene capacity of 375,000 mt/year.
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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