UPDATE: South Korea’s Lotte to shut HDPE line following power outage

As reported earlier, South Korea’s Lotte Chemical was forced to declare emergency shutdown at its naphtha cracker in Yeosu last Thursday following a power outage. The cracker remains off-line this week with no clear indication on how long it would take for the company to bring the unit back online. 

Today, in an official announcement to its customers, Lotte Chemical informed that the company would have to lower run rate at the HDPE plant on the same site to shut down as a result of the event. The unit might have to remain shut for at least one month, and until the production issue is fixed, the company might have to delay all the shipments.

The cracker is able to produce 1.2 million tons per annum of ethylene and 620,000 tons of propylene. While the HDPE line has an annual capacity of 630,000 tons/year. 

**Picture of Lotte Chemical's cracker in Yeosu