Updates on planned return of petchem plants in US after Harvey

According to market sources, more producers are trying to resume operations at their plants in the post-Harvey period after Exxon, Dow and BASF-Total partially restarted their plants.

Having completed the preparations, Formosa restarted one of its crackers at Point Comfort. Although the company said that additional in-plant utilities were operating as well, it was not clear whether PP, PE and PVC units are fully operational after being shut for more than a week.

Following the partial restart of Baytown facilities, ExxonMobil is also preparing to restart its PE plants in Beaumont and Mont Belvieu, Texas. The company has a 1 million tons/year of PE plant while there are two new plants at the start-up phase with a combined capacity of 1.3 million tons/year. The Beaumont chemical complex also houses an 827,000 tons/year ethylene cracker, for which there was no update at the time of press.

LyondellBasell, meanwhile, reported that their plants are in a recovery phase. The company commenced the startup activities but expects to return to normal operations at most of its sites by the end of September or early October. The force majeure of Equistar Chemicals, a subsidiary of LyondellBasell, on PE from its plants in Matagorda, Victoria, Chocolate Bayou and La Porte remains in place.

Enterprise Products Partners also restarted its Mont Belvieu complex, including six propylene splitters. The company also resumed loadings from its ethane and polymer-grade propylene export facilities.

Huntsman is also preparing to reach full operating rates at its Texas complex including a 200,000 tons/year cracker at Port Neches.

Sasol have also resumed operations at its new complex after a shutdown of more than a week. Construction workers came back to the site “albeit at lower than usual turnout levels” following its closure on Aug 26. The complex which will house a 1.5 million tons/year cracker and six derivative units was expected to be commissioned in 2018 and whether the recent shutdown will cause delays in the start-up date is yet to be known.

Meanwhile, Braskem is going ahead with its plants to start up a 450,000 tons/year PP plant in La Porte, Texas as the site was not affected by Harvey. The construction started this summer with an expected startup date in 2020. The company’s PP plants in Seadrift and Freeport with respective capacities of 227,000 tons/year and 336,000 tons/year remains shut, however, after taken offline on August 25-28.

You can also check out the recent status of overall capacities in the US for polymers and feedstocks on the graphs below prepared by RTI following the latest updates on shutdowns.