Turnaround season set to kick off at Asian crackers
Major crackers in Asia are preparing for maintenance shutdowns in the months ahead while some crackers are already shut. These production shutdowns are expected to lend support to spot ethylene prices across the region, for which supplies have already been limited for some time.
According to players in the region, there will be at least seven plants shut down through the end of June in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand. In the meantime, Shell’s major cracker in Singapore, which went offline in November and a force majeure was declared, is not expected to return until the second half of this year.