April 18, 2012:

Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp will delay the restart of a residue desulphurizer unit (RDS) at a refinery from this week to a later date after it found a lubricant leak, its spokesman said on Wednesday. "We are still assessing the situation and have yet to determine how long the restart will be delayed," spokesman KY Lin said. The No.2 RDS unit, which has a nameplate capacity of about 80,000 barrels per day, had been scheduled to restart this week after it was damaged by a fire in July 2010.

Formosa will also have to postpone a scheduled maintenance at its No. 1 RDS unit due to the restart delay, Lin said. The refiner had planned to shut a crude unit and two secondary units for maintenance in May. Formosa has bought additional sour crude in preparation for the RDS restart, but it is unlikely to re-sell the cargoes because the delay is likely to be short, Lin said.

"We didn't buy a lot of crude as the unit will be slowly ramping up its output," he said. Formosa's crude purchase volumes will also be lower than usual in the next two months when it is scheduled to shut some refining units for maintenance, he added.

By Reuters