source: Plastemart (9/5)

After a month of reduced output, Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp. has resumed 100% operations at its 700,000 tpa cracker. The No.1 cracker was idled in early April for about five days, but damage to its furnace tube during the outage prevented the cracker from operating at more than 80% capacity. Formosa, Asia's largest ethylene producer by capacity, has issued a spot tender to buy 75000 tons of naphtha for June 26-July 5 delivery to Mailiao.

source: Plastemart (7/5)

Investments by Solvay, Dow, Petrobras and Braskem to produce resins in Brazil with renewable feedstock are being forecast to rise to US$1.3 bln. The states of Bahia and Rio Grande await investments in the form of a Braskem project, to manufacture polyethylene using sugar cane ethane. Dow, in partnership with Crystalsev, also plans to produce polyethylene, from alcohol. Solvay intends to use ethane to make PVC, and Nova Petroquimica, a Petrobras company, has a project to produce polypropylene from the glycerine byproducts of biodiesel production.

source: Platts (7/5)

PL Propylene, a subsidiary of PetroLogistics, announced Wednesday a project to construct a 1.2 billion lb/year propane dehydrogenation plant to produce propylene. The facility will be located in the vicinity of the Houston Ship Channel at the site of the former Houston olefins plant recently acquired by PL Propylene from ExxonMobil. The infrastructure, logistics and certain of the processing units of the former ExxonMobil plant will be used as the platform for the project, which will utilize the "CATOFIN" technology licensed by Lummus Technology, a CB&I company. When completed in mid-2010, the plant would produce both chemical grade and polymer grade propylene, and would have extensive pipeline connectivity to propylene consumers. The plant would also produce commercial quantities of hydrogen and other co-products.

S & B Engineers and Constructors will serve as the principal EPC contractor. PL Propylene president Nathan Ticatch stated, "This project will take advantage of the unique attributes of the Houston Olefins Plant that make it ideally suited for conversion to propane dehydrogenation to make propylene. The resulting facility will be the largest propane dehydrogenation plant in the world, coming at a time when the US market has a need for new sources of propylene." PL Propylene amd its affiliate PetroLogistics LLC both operate under the name PetroLogistics. PetroLogistics owns and operates salt dome storage, pipeline transportation and other logistics assets serving the petrochemical industry principally in Louisiana. Both companies are headquartered in Houston.

Source: Plastemart (07/05)

After a major power failure that occurred on Saturday, another blackout struck Yeosu National Industrial Complex in South Korea. It is suspected that the accident occurred at the Yeochun NCC 3 factory due to a malfunctioning transformer. The transformer was installed when the Yeochun NCC 3 factory opened in 1988, and was supposed to be replaced next year. Operations at several factories that was halted on Saturday after the initial power failure, was resumed on Monday. But this new accident has forced several players to stop operations again.
Saturday's power outage has led to an estimated 10 bln won (US$10 mln) in damages and lost production, with 10 factories, including Yeochun NCC and Hanhwa Chemical, in the complex stopping operations.