Malaysia's Petronas Labuan methanol unit shut indefinitely

02 September 2009 04:14  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional (Petronas) has kept its 660,000 tonne/year methanol unit in Labuan shut since July with no definite restart date due to lack of clean water supplies, a company source said on Wednesday.

It may take another month to solve the problem, the source said.

The plant had also experienced a technical glitch in May and had to be shut for a period of time.

Meanwhile, Petronas' newly built 1.7m tonne/year methanol unit at the same site was running at more than half of its capacity, producing 3,000-4,000 tonnes/day, the source said.

The company restarted this plant last week after being taken off line early this month, because of lack of supply of feedstck gas, he said.

Smooth production from the two Labuan plants could only be expected towards the end of this year, the source added.

Both the plants are projects of Petronas subsidiary - Petronas Methanol (Labuan) Sdn Bhd (PML).

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By: Heng Hui
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