A fire broke out at state-owned oil refiner Chinese Petroleum Corp's (CPC) no. 3 naphtha cracker in Kaohsiung last week, while the company was restarting its plant after almost a month's maintenance shutdown. CPC plans to restart the petrochemical plant by next month after repairing the unforeseen damages.
The repairs on the no.3 naphtha cracker having an annual capacity of about 230,000 tons of ethylene are expected to be complete in two to three weeks. Thus the production is likely to resume by next month after officials, including those from the Council of Labour Affairs inspect the plant. The plant faces opposition from the people who want the plant to be relocated and don't want the facility to expand further at the Kaohsiung site.
Earlier this plant had shutdown, as the demand for petrochemicals had thinned. However, due to the delay in regeneration of output from the naphtha cracker, the petrochemical supply to customers is foreseen to fall by about 20% when demands are foreseen to spike.
CPC's two other naphtha crackers, which are considered to produce about 885,000 tpa of ethylene, are operating as usual. Interestingly CPC, the nation's second-biggest ethylene producer, doesn't plan to cut purchases of naphtha
06-Jul-05 
