APIC ’16: Shell still making repairs to Bukom cracker – exec

SINGAPORE (ICIS)–Shell is still repairing its cracker at Bukom in Singapore, a senior company executive said on Friday.

“We’ve been extremely busy, 24/7 at the site, with significant resources deployed… it’s the first time that there is maintenance activity with night shifts in Singapore,” said Olivier Thorel, Shell Chemicals’ vice president for intermediates and ventures.

Thorel declined to outline a timeline for the completion of the maintenance works at the cracker, which has been shut since late last year.

“We have communicated to customers the window for the result [of the repairs] which we don’t communicate widely,” he added.

Market sources have said that they expect the cracker to be restarted between July and early August this year.

On 8 December 2015, Shell had said that maintenance works were being done at the Bukom cracker complex in Singapore “to rectify accelerated external corrosion in specific areas” but the company did not comment on the restart schedule.

Shell declared force majeure (FM) on the supply of base chemicals from its Singapore site on 1 December, and this was progressively extended to the supply of high purity ethylene oxide (HPEO), ethylene glycols, propylene oxide (PO), monopropylene glycol (MPG) and polyols.