MOSCOW (MRC) -- INEOS Oxide (League City, Texas) has declared force majeure on all grades of mono-, di-, and triethanolamine, and for Alkanolamine 5503 (polyethanolamine), effective 3 November 2019, reported Chemweek.
According to a letter sent to customers on 6 November, supply of feedstock ethylene oxide (EO) to the company’s manufacturing site at Plaquemine, Louisiana, has been interrupted by "an industrial event affecting its supplier," which appears to be Dow.
INEOS has 159,000 metric tons/year of ethanolamines capacity at Plaquemine. The company also has 57,000 metric tons/year of ethanolamines capacity in Lavera, France.
INEOS says the outage began on 3 November, the same day Dow reported that an explosion had burst a vessel containing water and small volumes of sulfuric acid and ethylene oxide at its Glycol 2 plant at Plaquemine. Dow’s Glycol 2 plant includes 206,000 metric tons/year of ethylene oxide capacity, a small portion of which the company consumes internally, according to data from IHS Markit. Dow on 3 November said the plant was in "recovery mode."
Ethylene is a feedstock for producing polyethylene (PE).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,589,580 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased.
MRC