Malaysian refiner PRefChem to load ethylene cargo next week

Malaysia's Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical PRefChem is expected to load an ethylene cargo next week, the first export since restarting its naphtha cracker last week, two people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.

The unit's restart and petrochemical exports could hurt sentiment in naphtha markets as demand for light distillate has struggled to recover this year, keeping refiners' margins under pressure.

Three market sources said the company's naphtha cracker came back online early last week after a month-long shutdown following a fire at the Pengerang Integrated Complex in October.

One of the five sources said that the cracker is currently running at an operating rate of 51 per cent to 52 per cent, although it was not immediately clear if products are meeting commercial specifications.

Ethylene is typically used as a raw material for further processing into petrochemicals within the complex.

PRefChem's naphtha cracker had been shut down after damage occurred to interconnecting pipes at the Pengerang Integrated Complex due to a fire.

PRefChem, a joint venture between State-owned Petronas and Saudi Aramco, has capacity to produce 3.4 million tons of ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene and methyl tert-butyl ether MTBE per year.

PRefChem and Petronas did not respond to requests for comments.