MOSCOW (MRC) -- Exxon Mobil Beaumont confirmed that operations at its cracker resumed in the morning on 26 September, 2019, after being shut down more than a week in the wake of Tropical Depression Imelda, reported BeaumontEnterprise.
Nakisha Burns, government and public affairs manager for Exxon Mobil Beaumont, said crews began the process of restarting the plant Thursday evening and production had been resumed by the next day.
"There was some flairing associated with the process that lasted through the night, but it ended by early Friday morning," Burns said.
The company shut down chemical production at the plant on Sept. 19, the day after Tropical Depression Imelda dumped dozens of inches of rain across Southeast Texas, and said it was considering similar steps for its refinery. The refinery ultimately remained operational, but flares remained heavily active after the storm.
Exxon Mobil Beaumont also reported the largest emissions release associated with the storm, releasing more than 36,000 pounds of pollutants. In its initial report to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the plant said the storm caused a process unit compressor to trip, which compelled employees to shut down a unit.
The company operates a cracker with a capacity of 830,000 mt of ethylene and 195,000 mt of proplyelen per year, low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant with a capacity of 236,000 mt per year and linear low density polyethylene plant with a capacity of 727,000 tonnes per year.
Exxon’s Beaumont refinery is the fourth-largest oil refinery in Texas, churning through about 370,000 barrels of oil a day to produce gasoline and other fuels. The refinery is undergoing a major expansion to make it one of the two largest refineries in the country.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polyprolypele (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption was 1,081,100 tonnes in the first half of 2019, up by 8% year on year. Deliveries of all PE grades increased. Meanwhile, the estimated consumption of PP in the Russian market totalled 694,210 tonnes in January-June 2019, up by 14% year on year. The supply of propylene block copolymers (PP-block) and propylene homopolymers (PP-homo) increased.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC