IIR Top Chemical Processing News Today: January 14th 2021

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North America
Formosa Plastics' 2.6 billion-pound-per-year Olefins 3 unit in Point Comfort, Texas, remains shut down. The unit unexpectedly shut down on December 19 due to mechanical complications within a turbine. Restart is expected by January 22.

Formosa Plastics continues planning and scheduling for a turnaround of its 1.8 billion-pound-per-year Olefins 2 unit in Point Comfort, Texas. The unit is expected to go offline in April for roughly six months, but timing for the turnaround will depend on the completion of the 1.65 billion-pound-per-year Olefins 1 unit turnaround currently in progress. The Olefins 1 unit was shut down on March 20, 2020, and a restart attempt is expected in the first half of March 2021.

JSP International de Mexico plans to implement a seven-day maintenance turnaround, in June, of the 110 million-pound-per-year polypropylene unit at its Toluca plant in Mexico.

International
Yeochun NCC Company Limited will delay the restart of the 1.2 billion-pound-per-year ethylene unit at its Yeosu Chemicals No. 2 Plant in South Korea, due to a low temperature. The unit was shut down on October 20 and was originally scheduled for restart on January 14. Expectations are now to complete repairs and resume normal operations on January 18. A revamp project (Project ID: 300283610), which is aimed at increasing the unit capacity up to 1.7 billion pounds per year, is being performed during the turnaround.

Egyptian Ethylene and Derivatives Company remains on schedule to perform a 30-day maintenance turnaround of the 1 billion-pound-per-year ethylene unit, which will begin July 11, at its Alexandria Complex in Egypt. Expectations are to complete repairs and restart the unit by August 9.

Methanol Holdings has cancelled an 18-day maintenance turnaround of the 577.5-metric-ton-per-year Methanol IV unit at its Point Lisas Methanol Plant in Trinidad and Tobago. The maintenance work was scheduled for September or November 2020, but the event was cancelled due to unstable economic and market conditions, aggravated by the pandemic. All scheduled works will be implemented in the next major turnaround planned to take place in 2022.

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