MOSCOW (MRC) -- S-Oil, South Korean petrochemical major has taken off-stream its residue fluid catalytic cracker (RFCC) unit for a turnaround earlier this month, reported S&P Global.
The company is likely to undertake a planned shutdown at the unit by early-July, 2020. The unit is slated to remain off-line for about two weeks.
Located at Onsan, South Korea, the RFCC unit has a propylene capacity of 705,000 mt/year.
As MRC reported earlier, S-Oil's new residue upgrading complex (RUC) and olefin downstream complex (ODC) was inaugurated at the company's Onsan Refinery in Ulsan, South Korea, in July, 2019. The project, which cost around USD4-billion, involved construction of a plant to upgrade low-value residue oil to high-value gasoline and propylene. The propylene is to be used for the production of 405,000 t/y of polypropylene (PP) and 300,000 t/y of propylene oxide.
Separately, S-Oil and Saudi Aramco, a majority shareholder in S-Oil, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on a USD6-billion steam cracker and olefin downstream project. Completion is expected by 2024. PCN earlier reported that the project would include a 1.5-million-t/y steam cracker, which would produce ethylene and other basic petrochemicals from naphtha and refinery off-gas. The downstream units would include the production of polyethylene and PP.
Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of PP.
According to MRC"s ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 347,440 tonnes in January-April 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Supply exclusively of PP random copolymer increased.
MRC