UPDATE: Malaysia’s PrefChem shuts cracker following the explosion

As reported earlier, an explosion occurred at Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical (PRefChem) complex at roughly 10.50 PM on 15 March 2020, which killed four and injured at least one. The initial report confirmed that the incident took place at the 300,000 barrel per day refinery unit. 

The company has reportedly taken its naphtha cracker at the same site off-stream with no notice on how long the unit would remain shut, according to market sources.

The cracker has an annual capacity of 1.2 million tons/year of ethylene and 600,000 tons/year of propylene.

CommoPlast has not received any updates pertaining to the production status of downstream PP and PE plants following the explosion. PrefChem owns two PP lines at the Johor complex with a combined capacity of 900,000 tons/year, a 400,000 tons/year HDPE line and a 350,000 tons/year LLDPE line.