Taiwan petchem facilities unscathed by 6.4-magnitude quake

04 March 2010 05:35  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Taiwan’s petrochemical facilities are operating following a major earthquake that rocked Kaohsiung on Thursday morning, industry sources said.

The 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck about 70km from Kaohsiung city – a key industrial area in southern Taiwan that houses a number of major petrochemical plants – with the reverberations felt as far as Taipei in the north of the island, according to newswire agency Agence France Presse (AFP).

The epicentre of the quake was in Jiahsian township, in Kaohsiung county, AFP said.

"I felt a strong shake while going to work this morning," said a source at Nanya Plastics Corp.

Subway services in Kaohsiung city were disrupted after one train shifted slightly off its tracks, according to reports from the Associated Press.

The earthquake in Taiwan came less than a week after the deadly 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile, which killed about 800 people.

The South American country’s busiest chemical port in San Antonio had to be shut and some producers had to declare force majeure on shipments.

In Taiwan, Thursday’s quake cut power supplies to about 30,000 residential homes but operations at petrochemical facilities were continued without disruption, industry sources said.

“The facilities are unaffected as they are built to withstand earthquakes,” said a source at Lee Chang Yung, referring to the frequent earthquakes that strike the island.

The company has a 140,000 tonne/year thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) plant in Kaohsiung.

Operations at the Kaohsiung facilities of Formosa Petrochemical Corp, Taiwan’s biggest petrochemical group, were also unaffected by the earthquake, company sources said.

 “Nothing happened [to operations],” said a source at Formosa.

Formosa has a vinyls unit in Kaohsiung that can produce 440,000 tonnes/year of caustic soda and 540,000 tonnes/year of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM).

There was also no impact at Ming Dih’s 166,000 tonne/year expandable polystyrene (EPS) unit in Kaohsiung, said a company source.

Methyl methacrylate (MMA) producer Kaohsiung Monomer Co (KMC) also did not experience problems with operations at its 90,000 tonne/year plant.

Paraxylene (PX) production went on as usual on Thursday at the three aromatics lines of state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC) in Kaohsiung, said a company source.

The lines have a combined PX capacity of up to 660,000 tonnes/year.

CPC’s biggest cracker, producing 500,000 tonnes/year of ethylene, is located in Kaohsiung.

Acetic acid production in the area was also largely unscathed, with the 160,000 tonne/year plant of China Petrochemical Development Corp (CPDC) at Da Sheh, Kaohsiung, operating normally, said a company official.

Outside of Kaohsiung, petrochemical plants operated normally, industry sources said.

With contributions from Helen Lee, Clive Ong, Bohan Loh, Heng Hui, Anu Agarwal, Ng Hun Wei, Helen Yan, Ong Sheau Ling and Gabriela Wheeler

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By: Pearl Bantillo
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