MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiwan's Formosa has bought up to 120,000 tons of open-specification naphtha, for flat to premiums of about USD2/ton to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis for the cargoes arriving in Mailiao in H2-May, as per Reuters.
This brings the Taiwanese majors' total purchases for May to around 300,000 tons, as per traders in Reuters. Price evels are higher versus discounts of USD1 to USD2.75 Formosa had paid on March 30.
Asia's top naphtha importer has also bought alternative liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for H2-May delivery at a discount of USD60/ton to Japan naphtha quotes.
As MRC wrote previously, Formosa Plastics USA, part of Formosa Petrochemical, shut its 798,000 mt/year polyvinyl chloride (PVC) line at its Point Comfort, Texas, plant following a line leak, as per a company filing. The unit was taken offline last Wednesday following a leak in a 3-inch-diameter degas line. The event ended Thursday, and included the release of an estimated 166.7 lb of vinyl chloride monomer. It was unclear Thursday if the unit had returned to normal operations. Formosa declined to comment.
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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