July 27, 2012:

Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp has shut one of two residue desulphurizer (RDS) units at its 540,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery in Mailiao due to a leak, and it may restart in about a week's time, a company spokesman said on Friday. Its other RDS unit is running at full capacity, he said. Both RDS units have a capacity of about 80,000 bpd each. An RDS is a unit that removes sulphur from crude. "The No. 1 RDS was shut on Thursday and likely we would need about a week or so to restart the unit," he said. Formosa has three crude distillation units in the plant with a capacity of 180,000 bpd each. It also owns two residue fluid catalytic crackers (RFCC), or gasoline-making units, with each having a capacity of 84,000 bpd. Formosa's no.1 RFCC was shut on July 24 following a steam leakage and is expected to resume operations in about two weeks.

By Reuters