Earthquake caused 23% of Japan's ethylene production capacity to be shut down

It is reported that market participants said that after the occurrence of the Great Earthquake in Japan, there have been four sets of naphtha crackers suspended production, and some naphtha crackers have been running down. These devices were shut down partly because of preventive measures and because of power interruptions. At the same time, the lack of naphtha due to the outage of Japanese ports also contributed to the reduced operation of some of the devices.

Mitsubishi Chemical's two crackers at Kashima, Maruzen Petrochemical's cracker at Chiba, and JX's cracker at Kawasaki have stopped production. These four devices together have a total ethylene production capacity of approximately 1.8 million tons/year, accounting for approximately 23% of Japan's total domestic ethylene production capacity. In addition, the operating rate of the Kyocera ethylene company, Mitsui Chemicals, and Sumitomo Chemical's cracker at Chiba has dropped to 60%-80%. The other Japanese crackers are close to full capacity.