Arya Sasol delays start-up of PE plants again

10 January 2008 12:12  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Arya Sasol has further delayed by two-three months the start-up of two PE plants in Assaluyeh, Iran, due to a shortage of technical personnel, sources close to the company said on Thursday.

 

“The LDPE [low density PE] plant will start up in March and the HDPE [high density PE]/MDPE [medium density] plant in June,” one of the sources said.

 

This is the third time in the past four months that the company has deferred the start-up of the 300,000 tonne/year plants. The previous delay, from September to November and thereafter from November to January, were attributed to “technical factors”.

 

The PE plants will source ethylene feedstock from Arya Sasol’s 1m tonne/year cracker, also known as Olefins No 9, which achieved full-spec production in December.

 

The delay in the start-up of the PE plants has come at a time when LDPE supply in all regions is extremely tight, with prices surging to record highs of up to $1,790/tonne CFR (cost and freight) in the Middle East last Friday, up $90/tonne from two weeks earlier, according to global chemical market intelligence service ICIS pricing.

 

Ethylene from the Arya Sasol cracker is also being fed into Farsa Chemicals’ 400,000 tonne/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit, Pars Petrochemical’s 600,000 tonne/year styrene monomer facility and other neighbouring plants in Assaluyeh.

 

Arya Sasol is a joint venture of National Petrochemical Co (NPC) and South African chemicals giant Sasol.

By: Prema Viswanathan
+65 6780 4359

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