Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp plans to shut two of its three crude distillation units (CDUs) for expansion and a naphtha cracker for maintenance next year, company sources said.

Formosa, the island’s only private refiner, plans to shut down one CDU for 40 to 50 days from early February, and another CDU for 40 to 50 days between June and July, two company sources said. Each CDU has a capacity of 150,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Company executives said earlier this year the revamping would expand each of the unit’s capacity by roughly 20 per cent.
Formosa’s third CDU underwent revamping in July and is now producing 180,000 bpd, boosting total production to 480,000 bpd. This compares with Taiwan’s largest refiner, the government-controlled Chinese Petroleum Corp, which has a total processing capacity of 770,000 bpd.
Formosa will also bring a 73,000-bpd residual fluid catalytic cracking unit (RFCC) off line to coincide with the February/March maintenance, said a source at its Mailiao refinery. Formosa normally exports about 150,000 tonnes of gasoline a month.
“We will have no exports as our main gasoline comes from the RFCC,” a company source said, referring to the impact from the shutdown during February and March.
Weaker margins may also force Formosa to cut production. “We may cut run rates soon due to poor topping margins,” said the source.