Japan's naphtha imports for Aug decline

Japan's naphtha cracking capacity has shown a decline as compared to last years values, mainly on account of a rise in regular maintenance shutdowns at ethylene plants vis-a-vis last year. Only one petrochemical plant was shut last year for regular maintenance shutdown, as against two shutdowns this year. This has led to a decline in imports of naphtha as feedstock for ethylene production by 7.5% to 1.23 mln metric tons in August.