Idemitsu, Mitsui, Sumitomo to restart mothballed benzene unit.(Idemitsu Kosan Company Ltd.)(Mitsui Chemical Co.)(Sumitomo Chemical Company Ltd.)(Brief Article)

Chemical Week, October, 2004

Refining company Idemitsu Kosan (Tokyo) has signed an [yen]8-billion ($72 million) agreement with Mitsui Chemicals and Sumitomo Chemical under which the companies will jointly restart a mothballed light naphtha reformer at Idemitsu's Chiba, Japan refinery, and offtake benzene and other products from the plant, Mitsui says.

The reformer will start operating in mid-2006 and have capacity for 250,000 m.t./year of benzene, Mitsui says. Sumitomo and Mitsui will each receive 50% of the benzene output, and Idemitsu will receive byproducts such as crude toluene, Mitsui adds. "Mitsui and Sumitomo are pursuing a stable source of raw materials with expansion of our respective petrochemical derivatives businesses [at Chiba] in mind," Mitsui says. Idemitsu, Mitsui, and...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.