China's Dushanzi declared emergency shutdown at PP, PE plants

According to market sources, PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Corporation has unexpectedly shut part of its PP and PE plants today due to a fire at the upstream unit that leads to a compressor failure at the polyolefin plant.

The affected production lines include two old PP plants with a combined capacity of 140,000 tons/year, a 100,000 tons/year old PE unit, and a 100,000 tons/year standalone HDPE line.   

There are no confirmations on the restart date at the time of this report. Sources said that depending on the repairment at the upstream plant, the company might take between a week to two months to come back online. 

Players are not expecting a major impact on the market given the size of the plant and the current sluggish demand condition in China.