ExxonMobil Singapore is planning to take its No. 1 cracker in Jurong Island offline on 25 April 2022 for unspecified reasons, according to CommoPlast with reference to market sources.
The cracker, which is part of the old petrochemical complex with an annual output of 900,000 tons/year of ethylene and 490,000 tons/year of propylene, might be shut for around one to two months.
Market sources said that the decision to take the No. 1 cracker offline could be due to the production halt at the downstream plants.
In the previous week, the producer formally announced the suspension of several downstream units due to unforeseen external market factors that significantly impact the company’s businesses. ExxonMobil did not specify which units were affected by the shutdown.
Meanwhile, the company reassured buyers of a stable supply of performance polyethylene (metallocene grade). As such, it is assumed that the 650,000 tons/year metallocene PE (mPE) plant would continue to operate throughout April. The other downstream units at the Jurong complex include two PP lines with a combined capacity to 980,000 tons/year, and two LLDPE lines with total outputs of 1.25 million tons/year, which are most likely affected by the outage.
At the same time, there has not been any information on the operating status at Exxon’s second cracker at the same location at the time of this report.
As MRC reported earlier, last month, ExxonMobil announced that construction of the new linear alpha olefins (LAO) manufacturing unit at its Baytown, Texas, integrated petrochemical complex is progressing and targeting commercial start up in mid-2023. When fully operational, the new facility will have the capacity to produce approximately 350,000 metric tons of LAO annually.
We remind that in February, 2022, ExxonMobil and SABIC successful started up Gulf Coast Growth Ventures world-scale manufacturing facility in San Patricio County, Texas. The new facility will produce materials used in packaging, agricultural film, construction materials, clothing, and automotive coolants. The operation includes a 1.8 MM metric tpy ethane steam cracker, two polyethylene (PE) units capable of producing up to 1.3 MM metric tpy, and a monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit with a capacity of 1.1 MM metric tpy.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,487,450 tonnes in 2021, up by 13% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 1,494.280 tonnes, up by 21% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whreas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC