Shanghai Secco Petrochemical to use liquefied petroleum gas for steam cracking from January

18-Dec-14

Shanghai Secco Petrochemical will start using liquefied petroleum gas for steam cracking from January, as per sources in Platts. The cracker in Shanghai has capacity to produce 1.1 million mt/year of ethylene and 50,000 mt/year of propylene, and also feeds crude C- feedstock to its 180000 mt/year butadiene unit. Asian steam cracker operators are increasingly opting to use LPG as a feedstock for steam crackers due to healthy ethylene margins. Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical and South Korea's Yeochun Naphtha Cracking Center have announced they will use LPG for steam cracking from January, while South Korea's Lotte Chemical is mulling a similar move. The Asian ethylene-naphtha spread was calculated at US$491.8/mt Tuesday, well above the typical breakeven range of US$300-350/mt.