Singapore has increased its imports of benzene from South Korea in the first quarter as end-users secure supplies ahead of plant turnarounds and prolonged shutdowns across Southeast Asia, market participants said Tuesday.
In comparison, Singapore did not import any benzene from South Korea in Q1 last year, according to data from the Korea Customs Service.
The rise in benzene shipments this quarter was attributed to feedstock requirements from Ellba Eastern, a joint venture between Shell and BASF, and Shell Singapore. Ellba operates a 550,000 mt/year styrene monomer plant at Jurong Island.
Also, there were benzene feedstock requirements from Mitsui Phenols Singapore, which runs a solvents plant at Pulau Sakra that can make 300,000 mt/year of phenol and 180,000 mt/year of acetone.
The bulk of Q1 imports will come from South Korea, estimated to be as much as 18,000 mt or nearly 67% of the total 27,000 mt expected over H2 February and H1 March, according to shipping fixtures and shipbrokers.
The earliest shipment to Singapore of about 3,000 mt is expected to load at Kerteh, Malaysia, over February 10-15.
Shipping fixtures also showed that 9,000-12,000 mt are scheduled to be lifted from South Korea to Singapore over February 15-18.
Apart from the fixtures, there were several inquiries to secure space on chemical tankers bound for Singapore, a shipbroker said.
There was an inquiry to ship 6,000 mt of benzene from Yeosu and Onsan to Singapore over February 16-19, a shipbroker said.
In addition to cargoes heading from Northeast Asia to Singapore, there were also regional inquiries for vessel space from Southeast Asia and India.
Over the end of February and early March, 3,000 mt of benzene will be loaded from Haldia, India, bound for either Singapore or Pasir Gudang, Malaysia.
An estimated 3,000 mt is expected to be shipped from Map Ta Phut, Thailand, to Singapore, over March 1-5, but requires a Shell-approved vessel.
SOUTHEAST ASIA'S MARCH PRODUCTION CURTAILED
March benzene production in Southeast Asia is expected to be curtailed due to planned turnarounds and prolonged shutdowns.
In Thailand, PTT Global Chemical plans to shut its Aromatics Complex 2 in early March for about 30-40 days of scheduled maintenance.
It was shut December 12 because of a mechanical problem and restarted early January and since then, it has been operating at about 60-70% of its design capacity of 655,000 mt/year of paraxylene, 355,000 mt/year of benzene and 60,000 mt/year of toluene.
In Indonesia, Trans-Pacific Petrochemical Indotama's plans to restart its aromatics plant at Tuban in East Java, have been delayed until the end of February to early March at the latest.
TPPI's plant, which has a design capacity of 550,000 mt/year of paraxylene, 350,000 mt/year of benzene and 100,000 mt/year of orthoxylene, was shut on December 13 for scheduled maintenance and due to restart in early January.
Market participants said ExxonMobil plans to shut several production units at its Singapore integrated manufacturing complex in March for planned maintenance. The complex comprises of the Singapore Refinery and the Singapore Chemical Plant.
The design capacity of the Singapore Refinery is 605,000 b/d, while the SCP contains the Singapore Aromatics Recovery unit, which can produce 190,000 mt/year of benzene, 420,000 mt/year of paraxylene and 35,000 b/d of reformate.
The SCP includes a naphtha-fed steam cracker that can produce 900,000 mt/year of ethylene and 435,000 mt/year of propylene, a 270,000 mt/year n-butylene unit, an 80,000 mt/year MTBE unit, a 480,000 mt/year polyethylene unit, a 315,000 mt/year polypropylene unit and a 220,000 mt/year oxo-alcohol unit.
The Singapore Refinery is integrated with the Jurong Aromatics Plant, which can make 400,000 mt/year of paraxylene, 300,000 mt/year of benzene, 250,000 mt/year of cyclohexane, 200,000 mt/year of orthoxylene and 180,000 mt/year of toluene.
When contacted by Platts, an ExxonMobil spokesperson said the company does not comment on the operational status of its facilities.
