SINGAPORE, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp plans to run its 540,000 barrels per day (bpd) Mailiao refinery at near full capacity in January and February before cutting runs in March due to scheduled maintenance, its spokesman said on Thursday.

The refinery, one of Asia's top eight by capacity, is currently running at about 95 to 96 percent of its capacity, and is expected to maintain that rate through February.

But throughput is set to fall below 400,000 bpd in March due to scheduled maintenance including on a crude unit and gasoline-making units.

Formosa, Asia's top naphtha importer but a key exporter of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, also operates three naphtha crackers at Mailiao, in western Taiwan.

It has plans to shut a 1.03 million tonnes per year (tpy) unit for maintenance for about 40-45 days starting in June, added spokesman K.Y. Lin.

The remaining two crackers, which have a total capacity of 1.9 million tpy of ethylene, will skip maintenance this year.

(Reporting by Seng Li Peng; Editing by Joseph Radford)

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