MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp. has planned maintenance at its 540 Mbpd Mailiao refinery next March, September and November, a company spokesman said, reported Reuters.
Formosa is one of the largest oil products exporters in Asia, so any major supply cuts from the refiner would likely support margins.
The refiner is planning to shut a 180 Mbpd crude distillation unit (CDU) and two residue desulfurizer units (RDS) with a capacity of 80 Mbpd each at some stage during the maintenance periods, said spokesman KY Lin.
It is also planning to close a delayed coker unit and a vacuum distillation unit during the maintenance, he added.
The exact duration and timeline of each closure will be firmed up later this month, he said.
There will be more units in maintenance in 2017 than in typical years, he added.
"Next year, we will have more shutdowns than this year. Normally we have to shut down one CDU and two RDS and sometimes one residual fluid catalytic cracker, but next year we will shut down the delayed coker and vacuum unit also," he said.
Meanwhile, the company has offered diesel and jet fuel for 2017 term contracts, tender documents showed on Friday.
As MRC informed before, in the second half of September 2016, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (FCFC, part of Formosa Petrochemical) restarted its polypropylene (PP) units following a maintenance turnaround. The units were taken off-line in mid-August 2016 for planned maintenance. Located in Ningbo, China, the plant comprising two units have a production capacity of 280,000 mt/year and 170,000 mt/year.
Besides, Formosa Plastics Corporation, U.S.A., also part of Formosa Petrochemical, will build a new, state-of- the-art PP production line at its Point Comfort, Texas site. This will be the first new PP production to be built in the US in many years. It continues the company’s longstanding commitments to its customers, its employees and the communities in which it operates.
Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company's plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
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