BP Zhuhai to restart down PTA by midweek

21 January 2008 10:34  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--BP Zhuhai aims to restart its 500,000 tonne/year purified terephthalic acid (PTA) unit at Zhuhai in China by the middle of this week, after shutting it down on 19 January, two industry sources said Monday.

BP officials declined to comment on the restart.

But one of the industry sources said that the plant in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong shut last Saturday following “some minor mechanical problems, and the company expects to restart it in a few days from now”.

Another industry source said that the volumes lost “aren’t that much, and inventories are enough to meet demand anyway”.

BP Zhuhai operates another 900,000 tonne/year PTA line at the same site, which came on stream in December last year.

The second source said that operating rates at this second unit were still “not at optimal levels yet and tests continued to be carried out”.

However, it was not affected by the outage of the first line.

By: Salmon Aidan Lee
+65 6780 4359

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