News & Release > News
[News] Indonesia petchem plants unaffected by Sumatra quakes
SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Petrochemical plants in Indonesia continued to run smoothly despite two deadly earthquakes that rocked Sumatra island, industry sources said on Thursday.
A 6.8-magnitude quake occurred on Thursday at 9:31am local time (0131 GMT) 96 miles northwest of Bengkulu, less than 24 hours after a major earthquake struck Padang city in western Sumatra.
Wednesday’s earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale crushed 500 houses and may have killed thousands in Padang, which has a population of 900,000, according to media reports. Tremors of the Sumatra quakes were felt in Indonesian neighbouring countries of Singapore and Malaysia.
No damage was reported at the facilities of Indonesian state-owned energy major Pertamina, said company spokesperson Alicia Irzanova.
“We don’t have any upstream plants in Padang city,” she said, adding that Pertamina’s petrochemical plants were located too far from the quakes' epicentre to be affected.
The company has an aromatics facility that produces 125,000 tonnes/year of benzene and 275,000 tonnes/year of paraxylene at Cilacap in Java, Indonesia’s second biggest island.
Operations were normal at the plants, said a company source.
“The impact on the petrochemical industry in Indonesia is limited given that most of the factories are located on Java island,” said a source at an styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) producer PT Sentra.
A vast concentration of Indonesia’s petrochemical plants is in the Merak peninsula in Java island.
These include Chandra Asri’s 600,000 tonne/year naphtha cracker, Continental’s butyl acetate plant and PT Sentra’s styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) factory.
Java also experienced a 7.3 magnitude quake on 2 September but failed to rattle the petrochemical operations in the island.
With additional reporting by Helen Yan, Helen Lee, Bohan Loh, Clive Ong and Peh Soo Hwee
Source: ICIS Web, http://www.icis.com/Articles/2009/10/01/9251725/Indonesia-petchem-plants-unaffected-by-Sumatra-quakes.html
