Formosa restarts 700,000 tpa No. 1 naphtha cracker at 65% capacity

23-Sep-11

Formosa Petrochemical Corp has restarted operations at its 700,000 tpa No. 1 naphtha cracker at 65% capacity. The cracker has been shut down since a fire on May 12, as per Reuters. It will a matter of a less than a week that the cracker will start running at full tilt. A 1.2 mln tpa No. 3 cracker has been shut for a 40-45 days maintenance in mid-August, while its No. 2 cracker is running at full-tilt. Its 540,000 bpd refinery was completely shut following a separate fire in end-July. Run rate at the refinery has been restored to nearly 75%, after restarting its three crude units in stages. However, one of its two 84,000 bpd residual fluid catalytic cracker (RFCC) is still shut and will not restart this month because another fire on Sept. 6 at an alkylate unit has caused it to conduct additional safety checks.