OREANDA-NEWS. July 19, 2011. China's CNOOC and Shell Petrochemicals Co. joint venture, which restarted its integrated steam cracker and petrochemical complex at Nanhai in China's Guangdong province Sunday, has been ramping up rates, a company source said.

The cracker - able to make 800,000 mt/year of ethylene and 430,000 mt/year of propylene -- is now running above 90% of its capacity. The 560,000 mt/year styrene monomer plant is also back in full production, the source said.

All of the complex's plants were shut on July 6 due to an unspecified technical problem with the cracker.