Polyolefins

Outage at Daqing Petchem’s new China cracker to last 2-3 months

ICIS News : 7-Dec-12 07:28

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--China’s Daqing Petrochemical may have to keep its new 600,000 tonne/year naphtha cracker in Heilongjiang province shut for up to three months as the unit sustained serious damage from a fire incident on 30 November, a company official said on Friday.

“The entire cracker had to be shut entirely instead of partially on 30 November for about two to three months because the equipment damage [is] quite serious,” the official said, without providing details on what caused the fire.

The new cracker located at Daqing city started up on 6 October.

The company’s derivative 250,000 tonne/year high density polyethylene (HDPE)/linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) swing plant and its 300,000 tonne/year HDPE/LLDPE swing plant were also shut when the fire occurred in late November and are expected to be down for around two months, industry sources said.

Daqing Petrochemical also operates a 600,000 tonne/year naphtha/light gas oil (LGO) cracker at the same site that was not affected by the fire and is currently operating at 90% of capacity, the company official said.

The naphtha/LGO cracker consists of two production facilities with capacities of 270,000 tonnes/year and 330,000 tonnes/year.

By Helen Lee
+65 6780 4359
icisnews.asia@icis.com