Last month's fire at state-owned Petrobras' Refinaria Duque de Caxias (Reduc) refinery in Rio de Janeiro did not affect its ethane production and in turn did not impact petrochemical subsidiary Braskem's ethylene and polyethylene production, both companies said Wednesday.
"Ethane produced by Duque de Caxias (Reduc) Refinery is normal, and has no relation to the fire at its Distillation Unit (Reduc) that occurred on [January 18]," Petrobras said in a statement.
Despite multiple reports from Brazilian market sources of a reduction in ethane supply from Petrobras and reduced production of ethylene and PE for Braskem, the petrochemical producer also said its operations were not impacted.
"Operations in Duque de Caxias weren't affected by the fire at Petrobras' Reduc refinery," Braskem said in a statement.
Market sources had said there was a feedstock shortage tied to the January fire at Reduc. The refinery supplies ethane for Braskem's 520,000 mt/year steam cracker at Rio de Janeiro, sources said. It is Braskem's only cracker that is fed exclusively by natural gas, according to the company.
The Rio de Janeiro plant also produces HDPE and linear low density polyethylene via a 540,000 mt/year swing line along with 310,000 mt/year of polypropylene, according to Braskem.
A source in Rio de Janeiro said a recent order for HDPE was filled by Braskem with resin produced at an alternate plant when normally the resin comes from the Rio de Janeiro plant.
The fire occurred at Reduc's U-1210 atmospheric distillation unit but was not expected to impact domestic supplies, Petrobras said at the time.
"The unit is shuttered to evaluate the causes of the incident and any eventual need for maintenance," Petrobras said last month.
Earlier this month, the Gaschem Arctic departed from Enterprise's Morgan's Point, Texas, terminal, according to cFlow, Platts trade-flow software. The vessel was carrying about 78,000 barrels of ethane to Braskem's Rio de Janeiro plant, a source said. It is expected to arrive on February 22.
