Colombia's state-owned Ecopetrol produced a record 55,6000 mt of low-density polyethylene in 2016, a company executive said Monday during a fourth-quarter earnings call.
"We had our highest production ever," VP Adolfo Tomas Hernandez said.
Colombia's sole producer of LDPE, Ecopetrol's Barrancabermeja plant, has a nameplate capacity of 60,000 mt/year, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics data.
Ecopetrol said last month it would boost production in 2017 and was targeting 65,000-70,000 mt of LDPE output for the year.
Ecopetrol had generally run the Barrancabermeja plant at around 40%, according to market sources, but last summer it began running at over 90%, S&P Global Platts reported previously.
Stronger run rates were attributed to an upgrade of Barrancabermeja's Turboexpander ethane recovery unit, which had been out of service for more than 12 years.
