Japanese refiner and petrochemical producer Eneos will shut the larger cracker at its Kawasaki plant for repairs on 1 December after hitting mechanical problems earlier this week.
The issues occurred at the cracker's C4 separation unit but did not cause an emergency shutdown.
Eneos plans to maintain cracker operations at 95pc capacity this week and then gradually reduce operations to 75-80pc from the beginning of next week, in the run up to the full shutdown.
The shutdown is expected to last for about 4-5 weeks from the beginning of December.
The naphtha-based cracker has nameplate capacity to produce 540,000 t/yr of ethylene and 300,000 t/yr of propylene. The olefins are supplied to pipeline users, mainly for polyethylene, ethylene oxide, polypropylene and butadiene at Kawasaki.
Downstream users are now loading down operations to cope with the sudden production losses.
Eneos also bought two 3,500t December-arrival ethylene cargoes at $985/t cfr Japan yesterday. The prices were sharply higher compared with the $850-900/t cfr northeast Asia assessment on 18 November.
Eneos is seeking more ethylene and propylene to fulfil its commitments to term customers.
The company's smaller cracker at Kawasaki, which has 460,000 t/yr of ethylene capacity, is not affected and is running at full capacity.
