BP Refining and Petrochemicals, the company's German unit, was forced to cut output marginally from its Olefin 3 and 4 crackers at Gelsenkirchen, following problems with two furnaces, a company source said.

The furnaces, one at each plant, shut down last week, forcing the company to cut output from the two crackers.
The 440,000 mt/yr Olefin 3 cracker had only just recovered from an outage at the end of January, during which force majeure was declared on ethylene supplies.
The Olefin 4 cracker has a 515,000 mt/yr capacity.
The company was hoping to restart the furnaces by the middle of soon, the source said, stressing the current reduction was marginal, around 2,000-3,000mt of lost production. 
The source said the company was looking for prompt spot ethylene to maintain supplies to customers.