Formosa to reduce refinery output in October — November during maintenance, exec says

SINGAPORE, Oct 16 (Reuters) — Formosa Petrochemical is reducing crude oil processing at its refinery in Mailiao, Taiwan, as it conducts maintenance at several units, the company's president said. The refiner, among Asia's largest fuel exporters, planned to reduce crude processing to 430,000 barrels per day in October and 320,000 bpd in November, President KY Lin told Reuters. The refinery, which has a nameplate capacity of 540,000 bpd, processed 490,000 bpd of crude last month, according to Lin. Formosa has started a turnaround at its vacuum distillation unit (VDU) which will last 49 days, Lin said. It planned to shut its delayed coking unit (DCU) later this week for 55 days, he added. The VDU and DCU typically process fuel oil to make oil products such as gasoline and diesel. The refinery's No. 2 crude distillation unit (CDU) will halt operations by end-October, Lin said. The plan was to shut the CDU for 38 days but Formosa may bring forward the unit's restart to capture strong margins for naphtha and fuel oil, he added. (Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Christian Schmollinger) ((mailto:Florence.Tan@thomsonreuters.com;)