Formosa Petrochemical’s No. 1 cracker to restart before H2 August

12-Jul-11

Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp will restart the it’s 700,000 tpa No. 1 naphtha cracker before second-half August. This restart will correspond with shutdown of its No. 3 unit for maintenance, and will avoid two units being offline at the same time, as per Reuters. Shutdown of both the units simultaneously will lead to insufficiency of ethylene feedstock to feed the derivatives units. The No. 1 cracker, smallest of three units, was shut following a pipeline fire on May 12. The 1.2 mln tpa No. 3 unit will be shut for 40-45 days for maintenance starting around mid-August instead of early September.