Formosa shuts No. 3 cracker for maintenance while No. 1 stays idle

25-Aug-11

Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp has shut its 1.2 mln tpa No 3 cracker- the largest of its three naphtha crackers, for a 40-45 day maintenance around Aug. 15 as planned. However a decision is awaited on restart of its offline No. 1 unit, as per Reuters. The 700,000 tpa cracker was taken offline after a liquefied gas petroleum (LPG) pipeline fire on May 12, and its restart was to precede maintenance shutdown at the No. 3 cracker. However, these plans were derailed by another fire, this time at a propylene recovery unit at its 540,000 bpd refinery in end July.