On Thursday, propylene prices in Asia journeyed northward. The price rise was supported by higher upstream crude values, coupled with tight regional product avails.

FOB Korea propylene prices, were assessed up at the USD 790/mt levels, a day on day increase of USD 5/mt.

CFR China prices were higher at the USD 830/mt levels, a rise of USD 10/mt from Wednesday’s assessed levels.

In plant news, JG Summit Petrochemical Corp, is likely to restart its naphtha cracker in H1 January 2020, following maintenance and debottlenecking exercise. The cracker was shut on October 6, 2019 and was supposed to complete a turnaround and expansion process in early-December 2019. Following the expansion, the ethylene capacity will be increased by 160,000 MT and propylene capacity will be increased by 50,000 MT. Located in Batangas City, the Philippines, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 320,000 mt/year and propylene capacity of 190,000 mt/year.

In other plant news, LG Chem, is in plans to reduce the operational rates at its cracker to around 90-95% in January 2020 owing to weak economic fundamentals. Located at Daesan in South Korea, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 1.27 million mt/year and propylene capacity of 650,000 mt/year.