Formosa may delay restart of fuel-oil unit by a week

Written by Writer on Thursday, October 16th, 2008

Formosa may delay restart of fuel-oil unit by a week

Bloomberg
Wednesday, October 15, 2008

TAIPEI, Taiwan –– Formosa Petrochemical Corp., Taiwan’s only publicly traded oil refiner, may delay the restart of a fuel-oil unit by about one week because maintenance work was hampered by typhoons.

The so-called residue desulfurization unit may resume operations on Oct. 17 or Oct. 18, spokesman Lin Keh-yen said yesterday. The company had planned to restart the 80,000 barrel-a-day unit on Oct. 10 after shutting it on Sept.1 for scheduled repairs, he said.

Formosa Petrochemical is refining about 350,000 barrels of crude oil a day because of the fuel oil unit’s closure, Lin said today. The company, based in Mailiao, western Taiwan, has three crude distillation units with a combined daily capacity to process 540,000 barrels of oil.

“We’ve been keeping one CDU idle recently,” Lin said. “We don’t need that much capacity because of the stoppage” at the fuel-oil unit, he said.

Formosa Petrochemical will shut a separate crude distillation unit on Nov. 20 for 40 to 50 days for regular repairs as planned, Lin said, without naming the plant.