India’s Supreme partially shuts down PS plant

02 April 2008 07:31  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--India’s largest polystyrene (PS) producer Supreme Petrochem, has partially shut down its Ratnagiri plant for a 3-4 week maintenance turnaround, a company source said on Wednesday.

The turnaround would be conducted in a phased manner, with each of the three lines being shut down intermittently, the source added.

The source did not disclose the exact capacity that would be lost during the turnaround, but said it was not significant enough to affect the market.

"Since we have three lines at the plant and have already been running at reduced operating rates, we can adjust production at each of these lines to minimise production loss," the source said.

Indian PS producers have been running their plants at 50-70% capacity since late last year due to sluggish demand and low margins.

"Our margins are severely squeezed due to high styrene feedstock and polybutadiene rubber (PBR) costs," the source said.

However, producers were unable to raise PS prices due to customer resistance, as demand was low.

Indian producers rolled over domestic PS prices in April from March, to rupees (Rs)68/kg ($1.7/kg) EXW (ex-works) for general purpose PS (GPPS) and Rs71/kg EXW for high impact PS (HIPS).

Other PS producers in India are LG Polymers and Pushpa Polymers.

For more on PS, visit ICIS chemical intelligence.

($1=Rs39.88)

By: Prema Viswanathan
+65 6780 4359

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