Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), Taiwan’s only publicly traded oil refiner and ethylene maker, may lower the operating rate at its plants because of a shortage of the feedstock naphtha in Asia, an official said.
Some naphtha suppliers have failed to deliver the raw material on time or deliver the full amount, Formosa Petrochemical spokesman Lin Keh-yen (林克彥) said by telephone yesterday, without identifying the vendors.
“Sometimes we can’t get enough naphtha,” Lin said. “A lot of companies in Asia have such a problem.”
Formosa Petrochemical, based in Mailiao (麥寮), Yunlin County, has three naphtha processing plants with a combined annual capacity of 2.94 million tonnes of ethylene, a raw material for plastics, chemicals and synthetic fibers. Naphtha is distilled from crude oil.
The refiner reduced the operating rate at the plants to 85 percent for about 10 days last month because of a short supply of naphtha, Lin said. The company is now running them at full capacity, he said.
Formosa Petrochemical rose 0.2 percent to NT$85.7 in Taipei trading at the 1:30pm close. The benchmark TAIEX index climbed 0.53 percent.
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