John Westbrook
OGJ Correspondent
TAIPEI, Aug. 25 -- Taiwan's Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) has approved a $1.25 billion, 6 year expansion plan for Chinese Petroleum Corp.'s third naphtha cracker, which is located in the Kaohsiung Linyuan petrochemical industrial zone.
A key component of the expansion will be the installation of a production line for ethylene that will have the capacity of 1 million tonnes/year.
A company spokesman said that Taiwan experiences an annual shortage of 170,000 tonnes of ethylene at present and that the annual shortfall is expected to reach 900,000 tonnes before the company's expansion project is completed in 2011.