Sohar PP plant to resume full production this week

24 April 2007 11:53  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Oman Polypropylene is expected to resume normal production at its 340,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) unit at Sohar by the end of this week, a company source said on Tuesday.

 

The plant has been running at a 50% operating rate following its restart last week, he added.

 

The restart was expected to ease the tight supply situation in the Middle East PP market.

 

Limited availability of PP in the past few weeks has led major regional producers to raise offers for May in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

 

Offers were hiked by $20/tonne from April to $1,360/tonne delivered (DEL) for raffia and injection grades and $1,380/tonne DEL for film grade.

 

The plant was forced to shut down on 6 February following an outage at the adjoining Oman Oil refinery on 2 February.

 

The refinery, which supplies propylene feedstock to the PP plant, was also restarted last week.

 

With the restart of the  unit, all of the propylene produced from the refinery was being used to feed it and no propylene cargo was available for exports, the source said.

 

Oman Polypropylene is owned by Oman Oil (40%), LG International (20%), Gulf Investment (20%) and International Petroleum Investment (20%).

 

 

By: Prema Viswanathan
+65 6780 4359

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