Unipetrol delays Czech cracker restart to early Nov
29 October 2007 16:29 [Source: ICIS news]
LONDON (ICIS news)--Unipetrol’s Litvinov cracker in the Czech Republic might be down until 6-7 November because of a serious defect at the unit, with assessments of the damage currently in progress, according to a company statement on Monday.
The ethylene cracker was due to restart in late October after expansion work but damage to a complex heat exchange unit now meant this was impossible and supply of products from the company would be limited as a result.
The company was trying to run the cracker using hydrogen supplies from the partial oxidation (POX) unit, which could allow the cracker to run at 70-80% of maximum capacity until the heat exchange unit was repaired.
Unipetrol reduced supplies of some petrochemical products following a fire in mid-October that damaged the hydrogen unit. The fire led to the shutdown of the company’s ammonia, urea, OXO alcohols, polyethylene and polypropylene units.
The POX unit was due to be commissioned to run by 8 November, according to the statement.
As an additional result of damage to the unit incurred during the fire, the company’s Ceska Rafinerksa refinery at the same site could no longer produce motor fuel. The refinery had already restarted after a 39-ay shutdown which was meant to run at the same time as the cracker was out.
The company was putting measures in place to produce automotive gasoline from 1 November and diesel fuel from 3 November. When the POX unit restarts, the refinery should be able to run at full capacity, according to the statement.
The company’s other refinery in Kralupy had been running normally during the Litvinov outage.
The original shutdown was due to lift ethylene capacity to 545,000 tonnes/year from 485,000 tonnes/year.
Benzene capacity would be lifted to 250,000 tonnes/year from 195,000 tonnes/year, polypropylene (PP) capacity to 275,000 tonnes/year from 204,000 tonnes/year and high density polyethylene (HDPE) capacity to 355,000 tonnes/year from 285,000 tonnes/year.
Unipetrol is a group of companies owned by Poland's PKN Orlen operating in the petrochemical industry in the Czech Republic.
By: Edward Cox
+44 20 8652 3214
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