Taiwan refiners brace for super Typhoon Krathon as ports shut ahead of landfall
SINGAPORE, Oct 1 (Reuters) -Taiwan oil refiners are bracing for heavy rain and winds ahead of super Typhoon Krathon's anticipated landfall, with the storm likely to delay some fuel shipments and prolong maintenances, while key ports are shut, industry sources said.
Krathon has strengthened into the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane and is expected to cross the densely populated west coast to hit the major port city of Kaohsiung early on Wednesday afternoon.
State-owned Taiwanese refiners CPC Corp MOEATA.UL and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC) 6505.TW closed their respective ports in Kaohsiung and Mailiao as of Tuesday as a precautionary measure, industry sources told Reuters.
Refineries on the island operated as normal on Tuesday, though cargo deliveries and any ongoing maintenance completion are expected to be delayed by a few days due to the typhoon, said sources.
"Our RDS (residue desulphurisation) unit is currently under a scheduled shutdown and is expected to restart in early November, though the typhoon is likely to lengthen the turnaround time by a few days," said FPCC spokesperson KY Lin.
"Our RFCC (residual fluid catalytic cracking) unit has been under unplanned maintenance since Sept. 23, originally expected to take about 22 days for it to restart," Lin added.
Meanwhile, refinery operations at CPC remained unaffected so far, though its Kaohsiung port operations were halted as of Monday afternoon, market sources said.
CPC operates a 200,000-barrel-per-day refinery at Taoyuan in northern Taiwan and a 450,000-bpd refinery at Talin in southwest Taiwan. Its spokesperson could not be immediately reached for a comment.
Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh; Editing by Sumana Nandy
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