UpdateBASF Ludwigshafen cracker down until late Jan/early Feb

30 December 2009 15:17  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--BASF’s steam cracker in Ludwigshafen, Germany, which shut on 23 December due to a fire will remain down until the end of January or early February, a company spokesperson said on Wednesday.

“The fire was caused by a malfunction of a component which led to the release of a crack gas petroleum mixture in a waste water duct,” the spokesperson for the chemical giant said.

“We hope to have the cracker running again by the end of January or early February. The repair schedule is under development and there are no implications for any petrochemicals at the moment,” they added.

A fire broke out at one of BASF’s two stream crackers at Ludwigshafen on 23 December, which at the time was the second BASF cracker in Europe to be shut down due to fire in three days.

The cracker has the capacity to produce 220,000 tonnes/year of ethylene (C2) and 140,000 tonnes/year of propylene (C3), according to data from global chemical market intelligence service ICIS pricing.

The previous week, INEOS declared force majeure on C2 and C3 supplies from its site at Cologne, Germany, following an outage at its No 4 cracker, which is the smaller of two crackers at the site.

($1 = €0.70)

For more on BASF visit ICIS company intelligence
For more on propylene visit ICIS chemical intelligence
For more on ethylene visit ICIS chemical intelligence

By: Julia Meehan
+44 20 8652 3214

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