S Korea’s Honam Petrochemical shuts Daesan BTX on cracker problems

04 May 2012 10:17  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--South Korean producer Honam Petrochemical halted operations at its Daesan-based facility producing benzene, toluene and solvent xylene (BTX) on Friday, in line with the shutdown of its 1m tonne/year naphtha cracker at the site, a company source said.

Honam’s Daesan cracker was shut because of mechanical problems at its cooling unit, with production expected to resume on 11 May.

The BTX unit was taken off line at about 8:00 Korea time on Friday, and will be restarted in about seven days, the company source said.

The unit can produce about 360,000 tonnes/year of benzene, 120,000 tonnes/year of toluene and 60,000 tonnes/year of solvent xylene.

Honam is expected to lose about 5,000 tonnes of benzene, 3,000 tonnes of toluene and 2,000 tonnes of solvent xylene from the unplanned shutdown, the source said.

The company’s downstream 550,000 tonne/year styrene monomer (SM) plant at the site is currently shut for regular maintenance and is expected to be back on stream around 12 May, the Honam source said.

Honam also operates a BTX unit in Yeosu that is currently running at about 75% of capacity, he said.

The Yeosu-based facility can produce about 180,000 tonnes/year of benzene, 84,000 tonnes/year of toluene and 60,000 tonnes/year of solvent xylene.

Some of the other key BTX producers in South Korea are SK Global Chemical (SKGC) and GS Caltex.

Additional reporting by Clive Ong

By: Mahua Chakravarty
+65 6780 4359

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