Formosa Petrochemical Corp to re-start ethylene plant
03 Mar '09
1 min read
Formosa Petrochemical Corp plans to restart its ethylene Plant No-1 and shut down Plant No-3 in the process due to a mechanical fault which occurred in Plant No-3 and which stay closed for a period of 2-4 weeks.
Fibre2fashion spoke to company official from Formosa Petrochemical who confirmed the news by saying, “There was a small explosion in Plant No-3, due to some mechanical problem and the whole plant needs to be shut down for the time being”.
He added by saying that, “In the interim, we will start ethylene Plant No-1 which was earlier shut down” and confirmed that the No-3 Plant was running at a capacity of 70 -75 percent. Meanwhile ethylene prices have climbed by 19 percent in 2009 in Asian markets.
This happened after Formosa decided to shutdown the 700,000 tons per annum ethylene Plant No-1 in the first week of January. Formosa has a total ethylene production capacity of 2.94 million tons per annum between its three plants.