Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC) has shut down its 160,000 tonne/year butadiene (BD) extraction unit at its 1.03 m tonne/year No 2 cracker in Mailiao, following a fire which broke out on Wednesday afternoon, a company source said. “Only the BD unit was shut and we are not sure how long the BD unit will be down,” the source said on Thursday morning. There were no other details on how the fire started and whether there were any casualties. FPCC also runs a 110,000 tonne/year BD unit at its 700,000 tonne/year No.1 cracker, and a 176,000 tonne/year BD unit at its 1.2 m tonne/year No.3 cracker, at the same location at Mailiao. Both these BD units were running smoothly, the source added.