China’s Sinopec Anqing plans to postpone the start-up of its new 130,000tonne/year acrylonitrile (ACN) plant at Anqing city in Anhui province to the end of January, a company source said on Wednesday.

The new ACN unit was scheduled to come onstream on 20 December last year, but was postponed to 10 January and again to the end of the month, the source added, without disclosing the reason for the delay.

The producer has a separate 80,000 tonne/year ACN unit and a 70,000 tonne/year downstream acrylic fibre (AF) plant at the same site, according to the source.

In view of the short supply of raw material propylene, Sinopec Anqing plans to shut its 80,000 tonne/year ACN plant once the new 130,000 tonne/year ACN unit is running at normal rates, the source said.

The total production capacity of ACN in China will reach 1.416m tonnes/year, following the start-up of Sinopec Anqing’s ACN unit.

SOURCE ICIS News - For Internal use only

RELEASED ON 16/01/13 (DD/MM/YY)