NewsFlashFormosa new No 3 cracker runs at 70%

30 May 2007 07:44  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s (FPCC) newest 1.2m tonne/year cracker has increased its operating rate to 70% with stable on-spec production, a company source said on Wednesday.

The No 3 olefins unit with a propylene capacity of 600,000 tonnes/year was running at 50% earlier on Monday due to unspecified teething problems.

“Both ethylene and propylene were on-spec as of yesterday and production is stable,” he said, adding that the “quality of materials were good” upon further checks this morning.

Asia’s largest cracker started up successfully last Friday, after a delay of about six months, and had achieved on-spec production for a short while over the weekend.

However, the quality of the products will still have to be monitored for a longer period of time, and in the meanwhile, FPCC could not commit to the term contracts set for the new capacities as yet, he said.

FPCC has a total combined Mailiao olefins storage capacity of more than 100,000 tonnes, he added.

As for the start-up of new 250,000 tonne/year metathesis unit, the situation is still unclear but he said it was unlikely that the unit will be ready to start-up in the first week of June.
By: Gina Myung
+65 6780 4359

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