Lanzhou Petchem restarts cracker, derivatives

23 June 2006 09:15  [Source: ICIS news]

(ICIS news)--Lanzhou Petrochemical, a subsidiary of Chinese energy major PetroChina, restarted its cracker and derivatives units on Tuesday after a 27-day turnaround, a company spokesman said on Friday.

Operating rates would be increased gradually, though the spokesman would not confirm when they would reach 100% of capacity.

The company has a 240,000 tonnes/year cracker, a 60,000 tonnes/year linear low-density polyethylene (lldPE) unit, a 170,000 tonnes/year high-density PE (hdPE) unit and a 40,000 tonnes/year polypropylene (PP) unit at Lanzhou, Gansu province.

Other derivative units that were shut can produce 400,000 tonnes/year benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX), 60,000 tonnes/year of styrene monomer (SM), 50,000 tonnes/year of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), 50,000 tonnes/year of styrene butadiene rubber (SBR), 15,000 tonnes/year of nitrile rubber, and an unspecified amount of acrylonitrile (ACN).

A restart date had not been set for the company’s 70,000 tonnes/year aniline unit, where a fire broke out at the plant on 29 May and killed four workers. The restart would depend on when the authorities completed checks on the unit, said the spokesman.

By: Kelvin Ng
+65 6780 4356

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