By JACOB GRONHOLT-PEDERSEN
SINGAPORE -- Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical, Asia's top naphtha buyer, has shut the biggest of its three naphtha crackers in Mailiao due to low petrochemical margins, a company spokesman said Thursday.
The shutdown of the 1.2-million tpy cracker could last several weeks, he said.
"It depends on the downstream side,” said the spokesman. “We have no firm timeline on restarting the cracker."
The other two crackers, with capacities of 1.03 million tpy and 700,000 tpy respectively, are now operating at 90% capacity, he added.
Dow Jones Newswires