Financing
We refer to Financing in our capacity analysis to ensure that any planned new capacity has a source of funds to finance the construction of the new unit. This financing can be from the owners, from banks or from Government sources.
Firm Capacity
Firm capacity is the annualised capacity which is either already existant, or in the event of future dates includes capacities for projects which we are certain will come to fruition. The firm capacity total reflects our internal estimation of when new projects will enter operations, which can in some cases differ from the dates proposed by the project developers.
Fixed Cost
The fixed costs presented here are those directly involved in running the plant and supporting the business that sells product from the plant. It is calculated as a summation of the Direct (plant costs) and Allocated Costs (business costs) as is presented per unit of main product. Fixed Costs do not include any allowance for corporate costs.
Fluidised Catalytic Cracker (FCC)
An FCC Unit (Fluidised Catalytic Cracker) is a refinery operation that upgrades the heavy oil fraction from an atmospheric distillation column into lighter, more valuable components. The main purpose of the FCC unit is to increase the gasoline yield on the refinery, however the unit can also produce significant amount of propylene. Typical yields provide 6 percent propylene by weight, although careful selection of catalyst can boost this yield to 20 percent albeit at the expense of gasoline production.
Freight
The freight charge covers the cost for marketing and moving the product from the plant to the point of sale. This point of sale is dependent on the price quotation; common basis include FOB (Free On Board), CFR (Carriage and Freight) and FD (Free Delivered) reflecting increasing cost to the producer as he incurs cost moving product to the delivery point. This cost includes any fixed costs associated with warehousing.