(process-worldwid) -- Frost damages due to the extreme temperatures in Southern Europe have caused a loss of production for Serbian petrochemical company HIP Petrohemija. Now the firm announced a downtime at its Pancevo PE facility, due to force majeure.
A special meeting of HIP's Executive Board had previously decided to operate on technological minimum in all the plants of the company in Pancevo. Effects on the European commodity markets due to this polymer production loss are currently only regional.
A further problem for the industry in the Republic of Serbia is that the Danube, its main inland waterway, is frozen over and sipping traffic has stopped. With inland ports and terminals frozen, loading or unloading of vessels is currently not possible, HIP explained.
By the end of last week, HIP's production in its LDPE and Petroplast plants had been shut down due to electric power supply restrictions. Safety of production processes and of the employees wopuld not be affected by these measures, HIP speakers explained.