Iran’s Arya Sasol, Jam in process of restarting crackers

17 September 2009 10:26  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Iran’s Arya Sasol and Jam Petrochemical are currently in the process of restarting their crackers in Assaluyeh after a brief shutdown due to lack of feedstock gas, a source close to both companies said on Thursday.

Arya Sasol’s cracker has an ethylene nameplate capacity of 1m tonnes/year while Jam's cracker can produce 1.32m tonnes/year of ethylene.

The two crackers were taken  off line early this week as gas supply was cut due to repairs being done at an upstream unit. The repairs have since been completed, the source said.

The crackers were running at 50-55% of their capacities prior to their shutdown, which affected ethylene exports this month. Delivery of term cargoes to Japanese traders could only resume late this month at the earliest, the source said.

“We need some days to make up inventories for the derivative plants,” he said.

The downstream polymer plants of the crackers in the area were unaffected during the shutdown period, as they have enough inventories to rely on to keep operations going.

Arya Sasol’s polyethylene (PE) facilities include a 300,000 tonne/year low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant and a 300,000 tonne/year high density PE (HDPE)/medium density PE (MDPE) swing plant.

Jam, meanwhile, operates a 300,000 tonne/year linear low density PE (LLDPE)/HDPE swing plant and a 300,000 tonne/year HDPE plant.

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By: Peh Soo Hwee
+65 6780 4359

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