Fire halts ethylene production at Lotte Chemical’s Daesan complex

Lotte Chemical Corp. has indefinitely shuttered the naphtha cracking complex at its petrochemical plant in Daesan, South Korea, following a fire that broke out at the unit’s compressor on Mar. 4.

While an investigation into the fire as well as an assessment of damages resulting from the incident are under way, the operator has no definitive timeline for when the cracker will reopen, Lotte said in filing to the Korea Exchange.

The company, however, said it plans to minimize disruptions to supply during the production outage.

The Daesan cracker produces 1.1 million tonnes/year of ethylene, which in turn feeds production of 290,000 tpy of linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and 130,000 tpy of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) at the manufacturing site, according to Lotte’s website.

The latest official capacity data from Lotte shows the Daesan petrochemical complex also produces the following:

• 550,000 tpy propylene.
• 500,000 tpy polypropylene.
• 190,000 tpy butadiene.
• 730,000 tpy ethylene oxide-ethylene glycol.
• 50,000 tpy ethylene oxide adduct.
• 50,000 tpy glycol ether.
• 240,000 tpy benzene.
• 120,000 tpy toluene.
• 60,000 tpy xylene.
• 577,000 tpy styrene monomer.

Lotte did not reveal whether the cracker fire impacted other units at the Daesan complex, or if production from these units has been affected by the incident.