Update on restart of Ineos, Chevron, Formosa and Oxy in US

US producers continue to resume operations at their facilities one after another, according to market sources, following the update made yesterday on planned return of some producers in the US after Harvey .

Ineos was in the process of restarting its 875,000 tons/year No 1 cracker in Brazoria County, Texas after shutting it on August 27. The company’s No 2 unit with the same capacity remains shut at the time of press.

Chevron Phillips Chemical also restarted its Port Arthur complex, where a 830,000 tons/year cracker is located, after shutting it on August 30. The operations at the Orange and Pasadena sites, which produce PE, were also resumed in line with the Port Arthur complex.

Chevron Phillips is also about to finalize the restart process of its Sweeny complex, which was shut on August 27, by next week. The complex houses three steam crackers with a total production capacity of around 1.9 million tons/year of ethylene.

The company also reported that its new 1.5 million tons/year cracker at Baytown may face delays in startup. The original plan was to finalize the construction in the last quarter of 2017 and start test runs in the first quarter of 2018. However, the end of the construction may be postponed to the first quarter following the damages caused by Harvey.

Meanwhile, after having restarted its steam cracker with 818,000 tons/year on September 5, Formosa is trying to revamp its remaining facilities at Point Comfort. They include the No 1 cracker with an ethylene production capacity of 681,000 tons/year while 4 of 6 PP lines as well as the half of 6 PE lines were restarted. The force majeure remains in place on PP, PE and PVC supplies.

Occidental Chemical is also in the process of restarting its 550,000 tons/year cracker at Corpus Christi, Texas after shutting it prior to the landfall of Harvey. OxyVinyls, who declared force majeure on PVC, is reportedly running its four PVC plants at reduced rates.