MOSCOW (MRC) -- France's Feyzin refinery has resumed its maintenance and is likely to restart in July, according to trading sources, as per S&P Global.
Planned maintenance at Feyzin was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. The petrochemical part of the plant was operating normally. Work started on February 14 and was due to last around seven weeks.
As MRC informed before, France's Feyzin refinery was in the process of halting units and the steam cracker was running at reduced rates on 9 October, 2019. Local media had reported earlier that the refinery had been halting operations since Monday, 7 October, 2019 due to a strike. The company said it regrets the decision by labor unions to call a strike while discussions were ongoing with refinery staff about a planned indefinite closure of a unit due to lower product demand.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 557,060 tonnes in the first three month of 2020, up by 7% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments rose because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. Demand for LDPE subsided. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 267,630 tonnes in January-March 2020, down 20% year on year. Homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers accounted for the main decrease in imports.
MRC