Flooding owing to heavy rainfall arising from Typhoon Gaemi hit petrochemical plant operations in Taiwan's Kaohsiung area, with plants shutting down today.
Kaohsiung-based polyethylene (PE) producer USI has likely shut its plants because of flooding, according to Taiwanese market participants. The producer has 230,000 t/yr of low-density PE capacity, and 160,000 t/yr of low-linear density and high-density PE capacity.
Typhoon Gaemi's impact on other nearby petrochemical plants remain under assessments, with market participants noting that the Kaohsiung area was severely affected by heavy rain.
State-owned CPC owns two naphtha crackers in Linyuan, Kaohsiung area. There has been no impact on the crackers so far, but downstream units were affected, CPC said without providing further details. CPC will likely need to reduce cracker operating rates to balance olefins supply, but it is still assessing the situation and has yet to decide on its crackers' final operating rates. CPC supplies olefins to nearby downstream companies including acrylonitrile maker China Petrochemical Development, polypropylene producer LCY and USI.
There has been no impact on fellow producer Formosa's crackers in the Mailiao area at the time of writing.
