Outage fails to disrupt styrene monomer shipment from Pars Petrochemical to China

01-Sep-10

Iran's Pars Petrochemical Company will continue to ship up to 30,000 tons of styrene monomer (SM) to China, despite the Assaluyeh plant being shut for over a week, as per Platts. Sufficient stockpile produced prior to the shutdown of its 600,000 tpa SM plant will fill the supply gap. Under current plans, 15,000 mt of SM is expected to arrive in China by mid-September, while the second batch of 15,000 mt is expected to arrive by end of month. The unplanned shutdown of its Assaluyeh SM plant was attributed to a disruption in the supply of key feedstock benzene from its Borzouyeh Petrochemical's 430,000 tpa plant. The shortfall in benzene is a result of plans to shift production to gasoline, in a bid to cope with a shortage caused by a cut off in sales of gasoline to Iran due to international pressure. Hence, normal operations at SM plant will restart by early October, once Borzouyeh resumes normal production of benzene.