Major petrochemical plants in southern Taiwan shut after power cut

Major petrochemical plants in southern Taiwan were shut March. 3 due to a power cut in the area, market sources said.

It remains unclear the market impact from the power cut as the duration of the outage is not known. Some market sources said the impact may be limited as some of the affected plants were restarting from maintenance.

The sources said upstream steam cracker operations in the area was not affected, while some downstream plants were resuming runs.

A company source at state-owned CPC said its No. 6 steam cracker in Linyuan was briefly shut for around one hour due to the power cut. The cracker has resumed operations but not at full capacity given the outage at its downstream lines. The cracker is able to produce 720,000 mt/year of ethylene and 430,000 mt/year of propylene.

It is unclear when power supply will be fully restored and operating rates at the cracker ramped up.

In late February, CPC shut its No. 4 naphtha-fed steam cracker in Linyuan for repairs. The cracker, which is able to produce 380,000 mt/year of ethylene and 193,000 mt/year of propylene, is due to restart on March 4, S&P Global Commodity Insights reported previously.

There are several petrochemical plants in southern Taiwan, most of which receive raw materials from CPC. These downstream plants have been affected by the power cut.

Downstream plants affected

Taiwan Styrene Monomer Corp halted production at 9:00 am in Taipei (0100 GMT) after local power outage disrupted activities in the south of the country, a source familiar with the matter said March 3.

TSMC has a styrene plant in Kaohsiung with a capacity of 340,000 mt/year.

Taiwan's Grand Pacific PC has also shut one of its styrene plants in Linyuan with a capacity of 144,000 mt/year due to the power outage, while the company's 266,000 mt/year second line is under planned maintenance, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Taiwan's TSRC shut its rubber plants in Kaohsiung, according to a company source. But operations are slowly returning after power to the plant was restored.

Taiwan's LCY Chemical Corp in Kaohsiung had also shut its 400,000 mt/year polypropylene plant early March 3, a company source said. The PP plant has two separate production lines of 250,000 mt/year and 150,000 mt/year.

"We will need to shut down for a few days to repair and clean the pipes," the company source said.

The power cut, however, has had no impact on purified terephthalic acid producer CAPCO, a company source said March 3. CAPCO has a 760,000 mt/year PTA plant in Taichung.

Mailiao area not affected

Petrochemical operations in Mailiao area have not been affected as the power cut had only affected the area south of Taiwan.

Privately-held Formosa Petrochemicals' three naphtha-fed steam crackers continued to operate as per normal in Mailiao. The crackers have a combined ethylene production capacity of 2.93 million mt/year.

Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp's paraxylene production was not affected by the power outage, a company source said March 3. FCFC operates three units in Mailiao with a total capacity of 1.78 million mt/year.