Lotte Chemical of South Korea shut down its ethylene cracker in Daesan after an explosion that injured at least 31 people. It also announced an indefinite force majeure on supplies.
The explosion occurred on March 4, about 3 am South Korea time from a fire at a compressor unit within the naphtha cracker. The fire has now been extinguished, and investigation to determine the extent of the damage is under way.
The cracker complex along with the 1.1 million ton per year ethylene cracker also produces 550,000 ton per year of propylene and 190,000 ton per year of butadiene. The cracker also feeds an aromatics unit that can produce 240,000 ton per year of benzene, 120,000 ton per year of toluene and 60,000 ton per year of solvent grade mixed xylenes.
Other downstream facilities are also expected to be subsequently shut as feedstock from the cracker dries up. These are a 130,000 ton per year of low-density polyethylene, 290,000 ton per year of LLDPE, 500,000 ton per year of polypropylene, 730,000 ton per year of ethylene glycol and 580,000 ton per year of styrene monomer.
The company is yet to announce on when the cracker will restart following this outage.