Asia's olefins and butadiene supplies are expected to tighten over March-April 2012 as the regular maintenance schedules for two South Korean crackers will coincide with each another.
An overall 1.57 million mt/year of ethylene, 845,000 mt/year of ethylene, and 350,000 mt/year of butadiene will be taken offline.
In 2012, Honam Petrochemical Corp. plans to shut its naphtha-fed steam cracker at Yeosu from March 1 to April 15 for a 45-day maintenance program.
Honam's Yeosu cracker has a design capacity of 720,000 mt/year of ethylene and 360,000 mt/year of propylene, and supplies crude C-4 feedstock to a 130,000 mt/year butadiene plant.
Meanwhile, as Honam's cracker undergoes maintenance Yeochun NCC also plans to take its No. 2 naphtha-fed steam cracker at Yeosu offline on March 20 for the same purpose, until April 19, a company source said Tuesday.
YNCC's steam cracker, which can make 857,000 mt/year of ethylene and 485,000 mt/year of propylene, will be shut for an estimated 30 days.
The No. 2 cracker supplies feedstock to a 220,000 mt/year butadiene plant at Yeosu, which is also owned by YNCC.
