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Taiwan Formosa restarts CDU; runs at 87 pct capacity
By Ed Lane | Reuters – Thu, May 5, 2011SINGAPORE, May 5, 2011 (Reuters) – Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp is running its 540,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery at around 87 percent capacity after a crude distillation unit (CDU) resumed production in late April following a planned maintenance, its spokesman said on Wednesday.
It has also restored runs at its 2.93 million tonnes per year (tpy) naphtha cracking complex to full capacity after operational rates were slightly decreased due to squeezed margins. [ID:nL3E7FI0O0]
But it has not restarted one of its two residue desulphurising unit (RDS) which was damaged by a fire in July last year. “It is unlikely we will be able to run the refinery at full capacity,” he said.
“One of our two RDS (units) is still down because of last year’s fire, and it will stay shut until fourth quarter.” Without the RDS — which removes sulphur — Formosa needs to rely on light sweet crudes, which are more expensive that heavy crude oil.
The privately-run firm operates three CDUs of equal capacity. (Reporting by Seng Li Peng; Editing by Ed Lane) -
Formosa normally makes fuel coke – with both RHDS units down & having to run sweet crudes this might be opportunity for CPC industry to get batch of blend coke suitable for calcinable applications.
The Formosa Refinery had multiple fires in 2010 July thru Oct (Oct was mostly in adjacent Synthetic paper plant) that damaged the 2 RHDS units/Naphtha Cracker.
It appears the existing (1999 Lummus) 36 MBD coker was not damaged.
It doesn’t mention the 100-150 MBD expansion work during Fire Maintenance & T/A for the 4th Crude unit & New Coker addition that takes total coker charge up 65MBD. The expansion was delayed from 2012 to 3Q2013 in 2010 update after the fires.
Regards
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