MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics reported flaring at its Point Comfort, Texas, steam cracker to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, according to S&P Global.
The company said in a late Friday filing with the regulatory agency that "as part of initial commissioning, this is OL3 Plant's first startup and thus will require a stabilization period necessary to ensure removal of non-condensables and inerts from the process through intermittent venting to the flare."
The flaring is expected to last 504 hours through January 11.
The company was not immediately available for comment on operations Monday.
On Friday, a company spokesman told S&P Global it will not start up its new 1.5 million mt/year cracker and 400,000 mt/year low density polyethylene plant at the Texas location by year-end as planned earlier.
"We encountered some unexpected delays," spokesman Fred Neske said in an email. "Neither the LDPE (unit) nor the cracker plant will be running by the end of the year."
He said the company did not have an estimate of when the plants at the Point Comfort complex would come online.
As MRC informed before, Formosa Plastics Corp. Louisiana, a subsidiary of Formosa Plastics Corp. USA, is investing USD332 million to expand its production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resin and add production equipment in two other units at the company’s industrial manufacturing site in Baton Rouge, La., on the east bank of the Mississippi River. The project will include installation of new machinery and equipment for the expansion of the PVC resin production unit, expected to result in a 20% increase in production capacity and sales; installation of new machinery and equipment for a halogenated acid production unit for internal use in the production of vinyl chloride monomer; and installation of utilities equipment needed for operations, the Louisiana Economic Development (LED) said. Launch of the new operations is scheduled for late 2021 or early 2022.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,724,670 tonnes in the first ten months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market in January-October 2019 totalled 1,066,520 tonnes, up by 7% year on year. Supply of block copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymer) and homopolymer of propylene (homopolymer PP) increased, demand for statistical copolymers (PP random copolymer) decreased.
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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