Taoyuan RFCC restart delayed by mechanical problems

Taiwan’s CPC Corp. tried without success to start up a residue fluid catalytic cracker at Taoyuan that has been off-line for more than two months, a company source said. It was supposed to restart on January 1, 2010. The difficulties have been mechanical in nature, although the plant outage was prompted by poor oil refining margins including unrewarding returns for gasoline. It was initially scheduled to be shut for a month, which CPC eventually stretched to two months. The plant uses residual oil to make gasoil, gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), diesel, and produces propylene as a by-product. (January 10, 2010)