Formosa yet to restart propylene units after refinery outage

04 August 2010 03:47  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp has yet to restart its propylene units following the outage at its Mailiao refinery in late July, a company source said on Wednesday.

Formosa had shut its 540,000 bbl/day refinery, along with a number of its downstream facilities on 26 July as a safety precaution, a day after an explosion at its 73,000 bbl/day desulphurising plant at the complex.

Formosa operates an olefin conversion unit (OCU), which can produce 250,000 tonnes/year of propylene, in Mailiao. It also runs two residual fluidised catalytic crackers (RFCC), which can produce around 650,000 tonnes/year of propylene at the same site.

The producer was heard in talks to purchase some propylene spot cargoes this week, with discussions pegged around $1,170-1,190/tonne (€889-904/tonne) CFR (cost and freight) northeast Asia, market sources said.

Some deals could have been possibly concluded at the above levels but this could not be immediately confirmed.  

($1 = €0.76)

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By: Peh Soo Hwee
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