KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 3): Lotte Chemical Titan Holding Bhd (LCT) shares rose as much as 3.01% so far today, as investors expect the petrochemical producer to quickly rectify the problem that prompted the stop-work order to be issued on part of its T3 project at its integrated facility in Pasir Gudang, Johor.

At 3.15pm, the stock pared some of its gains and was trading at RM5.07, still up 9 sen or 1.81%, after 4.17 million shares were traded. The stock opened at RM5.02 this morning, after closing at RM4.98 yesterday.

Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd senior remisier Sam Ng said Lotte Chemical Titan's shares have been rallying on the return of investors' confidence.

“We see retail investors and institutions coming back to buy the shares. There is confidence among them,” he said, when contacted by theedgemarkets.com.

Yesterday, LCT said in a bourse filing that it had received a stop-work order from the Department of Environment on its K-COT catalytic cracking reactor in Pasir Gudang on Oct 1, after odour from the facility reached as far as Singapore.

The order is to allow the company to “mitigate and reduce odour emission and eliminate surface oil sheen/film discharge”, the filing added. 

LCT said the incident would not have a material impact on its earnings, and that the commissioning and commercial start-up of T3 remained on target, i.e. for the fourth quarter of this year.