State-owned ENAP of Chile will resume production of refinery-grade propylene at its Biobio refinery in Talcahuano, southern Chile in mid-November, a company source said Friday.
ENAP began a scheduled maintenance at Biobio in early October as part of a project to install a new process unit to reduce emissions at the 116,000 b/d refinery, the source said.
ENAP has been in the spot market for RGP since last month, the source said, adding that regional availability has been tight.
Biobio refinery can produce up to 40,000 mt/year of RGP, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. ENAP converts RGP to polymer-grade propylene to supply Chilean polypropylene producer Petroquim, sources with both companies have said.
Petroquim in early October began producing PP at reduced rates due to a lack of feedstock, a company source said. The production slowdown was expected to last one month, the source said, adding that Petroquim had prepared and would be able to supply the local markets.
Buyers and fellow producers throughout South America, however, have recently talked of a lack of availability of regionally produced PP resins. In addition to Petroquim running at reduced rates, PP producer Esenttia of Colombia was forced to reduce output in September in the wake of Hurricane Harvey limiting the availability of US-origin propylene. Esenttia has since been able to source Brazil-origin propylene and last month returned to normal operations on US supply, a company source said.
Latin American homopolymer PP import pricing was last assessed Wednesday by Platts at $1,245-$1,255/mt CFR West Coast South America basis and $1,265-$1,275/mt CFR Brazil basis.
