During the next few months, a few of the naphtha crackers in Asia have announced schedules for maintenance shutdowns. Among which are SECCO, China; Mitsubishi Chemicals, Japan; Mitsui Chemicals also from Japan.
SECCO located in Shanghai and which has a naphtha cracker capacity of 900,000 tons per year is already under a shutdown schedule since May 20, 2009 and is expected to resume operations by July end.
Two naphtha crackers owned by Mitsubishi Chemicals and located at Mizushima and Kashima with a capacity of 450,000 and 476,000 metric tons per annum are already under maintenance shutdowns.
The cracker in Mizushima has been shut down in mid-May and will re-start from the third week of July and the one at Kashima was shut down in end-June and will be brought on-stream from mid-August.
The 600,000 tons per annum cracker owned by Japanese company, Mitsui Chemicals located at Chiba was also taken off-stream towards the end of June and is expected to begin production by mid-August.
The naphtha cracker operated by Formosa Petrochemicals located at Mailiao and having a capacity of 700,000 tons per annum is likely to be taken off-stream from early September for a period of 40 days.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India