Singapore (Platts)--28Jul2010/352 am EDT/752 GMT

  

    Taiwan's privately owned refiner Formosa Petrochemical Corp. is in talks
with its gasoline term lifters to defer or cancel prompt export cargoes,
following the unplanned shutdown of its fire-struck Mailiao refinery, industry
sources said Wednesday. 
     So far, there is nothing firm on new schedules. 
     But it is understood that an end-July loading cargo and all of Formosa's
August loading cargoes -- estimated at five to six 250,000-barrel parcels --
will be affected. In the event that Formosa has to defer cargoes, it will be
delaying some of its August cargoes into September.
     The refiner had earlier deferred its end-July and August loading gasoline
cargoes by five to seven days due to an 11-day unplanned outage of its 84,000
b/d No. 1 residue fluid catalytic cracker over July 12-22 at the 540,000 b/d
Mailiao refinery. 
     Formosa is now preparing for the restart of the refinery and expects to
to bring the plant online by the end of this week.
     The entire refinery was shut on safety concerns after a fire broke out at
its 80,500 b/d No. 2 residue desulfurizer Sunday evening. 
     Still, runs at both the refinery's RFCCs -- each with a capacity of
84,000 b/d -- may not be able to reach 100%, as this will depend on the
availability of sweet crude needed to produce low sulfur residue as feedstock
for the RFCCs, given that the No. 2 RDS will be shut for several months of
repairs.
     Based on the residue feedstock at hand, the refiner expects to run the
RFCCs at a minimal throughput rate of 56,000 b/d for each unit, or about 67%
of capacity, a senior company official told Platts earlier Wednesday. 
--Irene Tang, irene_tang@platts.com

Similar stories appear in Platts Asian Petrochemical Scan. 
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