MARKET EYE: Asia Awaits Formosa Fallout

摘要

Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp. has yet to restart any of the crude distillation units (CDU) at its 580,000 barrel per day Mailiao refinery, which has been shut since Sunday because of a fire (IOD Jul.27,p3). As a result, the company has said it will postpone exports in August of gasoline and middle distillates. It also might have to defer some crude oil imports during the downtime. The outage could firm the product market while softening Mideast crude oil prices.