News Post
Japan's Sumitomo Chem to Mothball Naphtha Cracker
(Reuters) - Japan's Sumitomo Chemical Co said it would mothball the ageing 415,000-tonne per year naphtha cracker at its Chiba plant from May 11.
To offset lost production, Sumitomo Chemical last month raised its stake in Maruzen Petrochemical Co's 55-percent-owned unit Keiyo Ethylene to 45 percent and will receive 59.4 percent of petrochemical output from the venture's naphtha cracker.
Though Sumitomo Chemical's cracker will be shut for good, the company plans to resume operations of downstream petrochemical units at the Chiba plant from the beginning of July, using petrochemical feedstock from Keiyo Ethylene's 768,000 tpy cracker located nearby, a Sumitomo Chemical spokesman said.
A total of seven new pipelines are in the process of being installed to transport petrochemicals to Sumitomo Chemical's plant starting in July, Maruzen officials said.
Three naphtha crackers in Japan are scheduled to be closed between 2014 and 2016 in the face of declining domestic demand and stiff competition from newer ethylene plants in South Korea and Singapore. (Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Joseph Radford)
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