MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Petrochemical Corporation Company (FPCC) has to shut its No. 2 naphtha cracker in Mailiao, Taiwan until further notice, reported CommoPlast.
Thus, this cracker was taken off-stream on 15 July after a fire broke out at a residue desulphurizer (RDS) unit belong to FPCC at the same site earlier that day.
The number.2 RDS unit is designed to process 80,000 barrels per day, which is a part of 540,000 barrel per day oil refinery complex. The No. 2 cracker has an annual capacity of 1.03 million tons/year of ethylene, 515,000 tons/year of propylene, and 162,000 tons/year of butadiene.
It is unclear at the moment if the production at downstream production would be affected.
As MRC informed earlier, Formosa Petrochemical plans to shut down its No.3 cracker in Taiwan for maintenance in mid-August, 2020. The 1.2-MMt/y No. 3 cracker is due to be offline until end-September.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
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).
MRC