Shanghai Petchem shuts cracker for turnaround

10 July 2007 06:12  [Source: ICIS news]

SHANGHAI (ICIS news)--Shanghai Petrochemical (SPC), a subsidiary of state-owned petrochemicals major Sinopec, has shut its No1 cracker on Tuesday for a 30-day turnaround, a company source said.

The cracker, located at Jinshan, Shanghai, has a capacity of 700,000 tonnes/year.

A 110,000 tonne/year low density polyethylene (LDPE) line, one of the cracker’s four derivative units, was also closed on Tuesday.

A 250,000 tonne/year high density PE (HDPE) unit and a 200,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) line would be shut in two days, the source said.

The company’s 380,000 tonne/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) facility would only shut after 15 July as it had sufficient ethylene feedstock, the source said.

Distributors and traders, who expect the shutdown to have a great impact on PE prices in the east China region, said they had started to store SPC’s material since early June in anticipation of higher margins.

SPC’s premier LDPE product was heard trading at yuan (CNY) 13,700/tonne ($1,803/tonne) ex-warehouse on Tuesday, up CNY700/tonne from early June. 

Meanwhile, SPC’s No2 cracker with capacity of 150,000 tonnes/year and its derivative units, including an 80,000 tonne/year LDPE and a 240,000 tonnes/year PP line, continued to operate normally, the source said.

($1=CNY7.60)

By: Becky Zhang
+65 6780 4359

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