UPDATE 1-Taiwan Formosa restarts No.1 naphtha unit -sources

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SEOUL, March 12 (Reuters) - Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp (6505.TW) restarted its No. 1 naphtha unit earlier in the day, and the cracker was running in "stable condition," industry sources said on Thursday.

The resumption came after an explosion earlier in the month at the 700,000 tonnes per year (tpy) unit, leaving one worker dead and its control panel destroyed.

"Formosa restarted the unit, and although it's not running at high capacity, it's running stable," said a regional market source.

In line with the resumption, Formosa Petrochemical will go ahead with a long-delayed maintenance at its No. 3 unit at the end of the month if the unit continues to run stable.

The No.3 unit is now running at around 70 percent capacity, sources said.

Formosa had delayed the 14-day shutdown at its 1.2 million tpy No. 3 naphtha unit to March 7 or 8 to build up ethylene stocks. But the petrochemical firm had to postpone the shutdown once again after the fire at its No. 1 unit. [ID:nSP402558] (Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Ken Wills)