Nan Ya mulls Mailiao MEG turnaround in Sept

13 August 2007 07:25  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Taiwan’s Nan Ya Plastics plans to shut its No 2 350,000 tonne/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) line at Mailiao on the western coast of the island for about two weeks in September in line with its feedstock supplier’s turnaround, a source close to the company said Monday.

"The cracker’s shutdown means we’d be tight on feedstock ethylene As you know, ethylene had been tight over the past few months," said the source in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect.

The shutdown could take place on 3-15 September, said the source. The unit, commonly known as the Nan-Chung line, is a 50:50 joint venture between Nan Ya and another Taiwanese company, China Man-made Fiber Corp (CMFC).

The company gets ethylene from sister company Formosa Petrochemicals’ crackers, of which the No 2 900,000 tonne/year facility would be shut for 40-45 days starting 3 September.

Nan Ya shut its No3 350,000 tonne/year unit for three weeks in July, after starting up its new No 4 700,000 tonne/year line, all at Mailiao.

The units were running normally, but the company could also shut its No 1 350,000 tonne/year unit together with the turnaround of the No 2 unit if ethylene supply was seriously disrupted, the source said.

Nan Ya, with sister company Formosa Plastics USA, is the world’s third-largest producer of glycols.

The loss in volumes due to its Taiwanese shutdowns was expected to push MEG spot prices further upwards. On Friday, prices were at $995-1,015/tonne CFR (cost and freight) China, up $30-35/tonne from a week ago, after a series of outages globally.

By: Salmon Aidan Lee
+65 6780 4359

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