Petrochemical plants in Indonesia continued to run smoothly despite two deadly earthquakes that rocked Sumatra island, as per ICIS.
A 6.8-magnitude quake occurred on Thursday at 9:31 am local time (0131 GMT) 96 miles northwest of Bengkulu, less than 24 hours after a major earthquake struck Padang city in western Sumatra. Wednesday's earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale crushed 500 houses and may have killed thousands in Padang, which has a population of 900,000, according to media reports. Java also experienced a 7.3 magnitude quake on 2 September but failed to rattle the petrochemical operations in the island. Tremors of the Sumatra quakes were felt in Indonesian neighbouring countries of Singapore and Malaysia.
No damage was reported at the facilities of Indonesian state-owned energy major Pertamina as the company has no upstream plants in Padang city. Pertamina's petrochemical plants are located too far from the quakes' epicentre to be affected.
The impact on the petrochemical industry in Indonesia is limited given that most of the factories are located on Java island in cluding Chandra Asri's 600,000 tpa naphtha cracker, Continental's butyl acetate plant and PT Sentra's styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) factory.
05-Oct-09 
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