Platts 2007/7/3

Thai PTT to complete second olefin debottlenecking by June 2008

Thailand's PTT Chemical, which recently completed an expansion of one of its three olefin complexes at Map Ta Phut in April, has started a
debottlenecking project on a second facility which is slated for completion by June 2008, a source close to the company said.

The exercise will raise the facility's ethylene capacity by 100,000 mt/year and enable it to produce 50,000 mt/year of propylene.

The ethane-based cracker, codenamed I4-2 and previously called TOC No 2, currently has the capacity to produce 300,000 mt/year of ethylene and does not produce propylene. The plant's new capacities will largely be based on LPG feed, followed by ethane and natural gas.

The plant has been operating normally since the project began in May, but would need to be idled for about 30 days towards its completion for the tie-in.

PTT Chemical plans to sell the new output locally, including channeling them to its new various subsidiaries. The project was expected to cost $75 million.

In April, PTT Chemical completed a debottlenecking of its I4-1 naphtha cracker, which was previously known as TOC No 1. The cracker's ethylene and propylene capacities were raised by 130,000 mt/year and 120,000 mt/year respectively, to 515,000 mt/year and 310,000 mt/year. The new section has been designed to use ethane and/or LPG feedstocks. Part of the I4-1 plant's new propylene capacity started commercial operation in mid-2005.

PTT Chemical was formed in 2005 from the merger of Thai Olefins Co. and National Petrochemical Co. Its principal shareholder is the state-owned
Petroleum Authority of Thailand.

PTT Chemical calls its third olefins plant "I1". It runs on ethane and was previously operated by NPC. It has the capacity to produce 461,000 mt/year of ethylene and 127,000 mt/year of propylene. All three crackers are based in Map Ta Phut.

The company is in the process of building a fourth cracker at the site, slated for completion by December 2009. It will be ethane-based and have an ethylene capacity of 1 mil mt/year. This $1.3 billion investment will include two polyethylene plants with a combined capacity of 700,000 mt/year.