Feedstock prices to dip as SABIC and Dow shut naphtha crackers in the Netherlands

28-Jan-11

Saudi Basic Industries Corp. and Dow Chemical Co. are shutting naphtha crackers in the Netherlands, potentially damping the feedstock’s prices, as per Bloomberg. Sabic will halt production today at cracker 4 at its Geleen chemicals site because of a technical fault, while Dow will idle cracker 2 later this week for planned maintenance at its Terneuzen facility, for about two weeks. The shutdowns may lead to a bigger discount of the fuel relative to Brent crude oil as demand for naphtha, a refined product used in gasoline and petrochemicals, eases. Sabic has two crackers at Geleen with a total capacity to produce 1.27 mln tons of ethylene, while Dow’s cracker, one of three on site, has an annual capacity of 580,000 tons.