Guangdong province petchems unaffected by typhoon

27 September 2005 02:10  [Source: ICIS news]

By Florence Tan

SHANGHAI (ICIS news)--Petrochemical plants in the cities of Guangzhou, Zhuhai, and Maoming in China’s Guangdong province were unaffected by Typhoon Damrey, which hit the province over the weekend, said company sources.

A source from Guangzhou Petrochemical, which operates a 200,000 tonne/year cracker in Guangzhou, said the company had carried on operations as normal, and that the weather had cleared on Monday. Guangzhou Petrochemical also produces 200,000 tonne/year of polyethylene (PE), 110,000 tonne/year of polypropylene (PP), 110,000 tonne/year of polystyrene (PS), and an unknown amount of styrene monomer (SM).

A BP Zhuhai spokesman said his company’s 350,000 tonne/year purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in Zhuhai was operating normally.

The typhoon also had no impact on construction activities at CNOOC Shell Petrochemical Co’s (CSPC's) site in Daya Bay, Huizhou city, a company spokesman said. The 800,000 tonne/year cracker and derivatives project was expected to start up in October, he added, as 94.1% of construction work had been completed by end-August.

A Maoming Petrochemical source said the typhoon had no impact on its operations. He added that the company shut some of its plants in Maoming on Monday for a 35-day turnaround. They included a 100,000 tonne/year SM unit, a 100,000 tonne/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit, a 100,000 tonne/year low-density PE (ldPE) unit, a 50,000 tonne/year styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) unit, a 50,000 tonne/year methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) unit, and a 70-80 tonne/day (23,100-26,400 tonne/year) butadiene-extraction unit.

The source said the company's 231,000 tonne/year benzene, toluene, and mixed xylenes (BTX) unit would be shut on Tuesday, while a 160,000 tonne/year PP unit and a 175,000 tonne/year high-density PE (hdPE)/linear ldPE (lldPE) swing unit would stop production on Wednesday. Its 380,000 tonne/year cracker would be shut on 29 September.

The only petrochemical plant to be affected by Damrey was Hainan Fudao Chemical's ammonia and urea unit in Dongfang, Hainan Island. The China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) subsidiary shut the plant on Monday morning after power supply in the island was briefly cut. The plant, which can produce 1.41m tonne/year of urea and 795,000 tonne/year of ammonia, was being restarted late on Monday.

Damrey, which had been downgraded to a severe tropical storm, was heading towards Vietnam on Tuesday after causing nine deaths in Hainan. It was packing winds of up to 110kmh, and was about 198 km from Hanoi on Tuesday morning, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency's website. According to the local media, more than 200,000 people have been evacuated from Vietnam's coastal areas.

By: Florence Tan
+65 6780 4359

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