Taiwan's Formosa plans refinery maintenance in 2017
(Reuters) Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp. has planned maintenance at its 540 Mbpd Mailiao refinery next March, September and November, a company spokesman said on Friday.
Formosa is one of the largest oil products exporters in Asia, so any major supply cuts from the refiner would likely support margins.
The refiner is planning to shut a 180 Mbpd crude distillation unit (CDU) and two residue desulfurizer units (RDS) with a capacity of 80 Mbpd each at some stage during the maintenance periods, said spokesman KY Lin.
It is also planning to close a delayed coker unit and a vacuum distillation unit during the maintenance, he added.
The exact duration and timeline of each closure will be firmed up later this month, he said.
There will be more units in maintenance in 2017 than in typical years, he added.
"Next year, we will have more shutdowns than this year. Normally we have to shut down one CDU and two RDS and sometimes one residual fluid catalytic cracker, but next year we will shut down the delayed coker and vacuum unit also," he said.
Meanwhile, the company has offered diesel and jet fuel for 2017 term contracts, tender documents showed on Friday.
Reporting by Jessica Jaganathan; Editing by Joseph Radford
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