Thailand's TOC plans capacity hike at cracker in mid-2006

21 December 2004 01:01  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (CNI)--Thai Olefins Co (TOC) plans to debottleneck its two crackers in 2006 and raise their total capacity to almost 1m tonne/year by mid-2006, a company official told CNI on Tuesday.

 

TOC started up its new 300 000 tonne/year ethane-based cracker in mid-November and hopes to begin commercial production in January. This is an addition to its existing 385 000 tonne/year naphtha based cracker, also at Mab Ta Phut. Both plants produce ethylene and propylene.

 

The official said that the planned debottlenecking could raise the total capacity by around 300 000 tonne/year, and estimated that it could cost up to $140m.

 

“Most of the ethylene and propylene produced will be for captive use. By 2006, we hope to have a total capacity of around 1m tonne/year,” said the official. He added that a decision on how much the capacity will be increased will be made in the first quarter of 2005.

 

Much of the ethylene produced will go to Bangkok Polyethylene, which is co-owned by TOC and PTT Pcl. Currently, TOC sells 50% its ethylene to BPE, which will raise the capacity at its 250 000 tonne/year high density polyethylene (hdPE) plant by 50 000 tonne/year by end-2005.

By: Siva Govindasamy
+65 6780 4359

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