Singapore's PCS shuts naphtha cracker; unit seen offline for 2 weeks

[SINGAPORE] Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore (PCS) has shut the smaller of two naphtha crackers following an outage, and the unit is expected to stay offline for about 14 days, trade sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The smaller unit produces 465,000 tonnes of ethylene a year.

The larger unit, which has a capacity of 635,000 tonnes per year (tpy) of ethylene, is operating at maximum capacity.

PCS could not be reached for comments.

A two-week downtime at PCS's smaller cracker would result in a demand loss for naphtha of about two medium-range vessel-size cargoes.

The outage came at a time when India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) had offered a 30,000-tonne naphtha cargo for prompt loading due to a fall in domestic need for the fuel.

REUTERS