MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics' new 1.5 million mt/year cracker in Point Comfort, Texas, has come online and was seen ramping up through January, reported S&P Global with reference to sources familiar with the company operations.
"Formosa cracker is running, and is shown to be ramping up to full rates by the end of January," one of the sources said.
"The new unit was up last week and has been running smooth," a second source said.
The company's new 400,000 low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant at Point Comfort "should be ready in February for now," the second source added.
A company spokesman did not provide any update on the status of the plants Wednesday.
Formosa had initially planned to start up the new cracker and LDPE plant by end-2019, but spokesman Fred Neske said days before Christmas that the units encountered unexpected delays. At the time, he said Formosa had no timeline on when the startup process would resume.
As MRC informed earlier, 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 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.
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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