China’s Jilin Petrochemical to shut ACN units ahead of schedule

13 May 2011 08:16  [Source: ICIS news]

SHANGHAI (ICIS)--China’s Jilin Petrochemical has planned to shut down its three acrylonitrile (ACN) plants in turn from the second half of June, a source close to the company said on Friday.

The company had planned to shut down the ACN plants in early July. They have a combined capacity of 332,000 tonnes/year.

“We have decided to shut them down earlier than [we had] originally scheduled as the ACN market is currently very soft, in line with weak demand. Prices have been down by around yuan (CNY) 600/tonne ($92/tonne) since the end of April,” the source said.

The mainstream prices of ACN in the domestic market were heard at CNY20,300-20,400/tonne on Friday and they are expected to decline further, an industry source said.

However, the plants will not be shut down at the same time. “We will shut down the three ACN plants in turns to maintain the low rate of ACN production, which is fed to our own downstream 180,000 tonne/year acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plant,” the source added.

The shutdown will last for 20-30 days as scheduled, the source said.

($1 = CNY6.50)

Additional reporting by Michelle Ma and Helen Yan

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By: Dolly Wu
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