MOSCOW (MRC) -- Huntsman (The Woodlands, Texas) has idled its propylene oxide/methyl tert-butyl ether (PO/MTBE) plant at Port Neches, Texas, following the fire that destroyed TPC Group’s neighboring butadiene facility last week, reported Chemweek.
There were no injuries or damage at the Huntsman facility, but the PO/MTBE unit was taken offline because of "certain dependencies," says the company.
"While we await access to the adjacent site and further evaluate alternatives to safely bring this unit fully back on line, the expected duration of downtime and economic impact is unknown," Huntsman says in a statement published on 2 December. "The outage is expected to have a minor negative knock-on impact of a few million dollars to fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA for continuing operations, largely relating to the sourcing of PO."
The PO/MTBE unit at Port Neches has capacity to produce 235,000 metric tons/year of propylene oxide, which Huntsman uses to produce propylene glycol and polyether polyols, and 650,000 metric tons/year of MTBE.
We remind that, as MRC wrote before, in October 2019, Huntsman Corporation completed the previously announced acquisition of the remaining 50% interest in the Sasol-Huntsman maleic anhydride joint venture from Sasol. Huntsman now owns 100% of the entity with manufacturing assets located in Moers, Germany, and the capacity to produce 230 million pounds annually of maleic anhydride. Huntsman paid Sasol approximately USD100 million, which includes acquired cash net of any debt and is subject to customary post-closing adjustments.
Propylene is a feedstock for the production of polyprolypele (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall PP production rose to about 1,163,200 tonnes in the first ten months of 2018, up by 1.3% year on year. Three producers out of seven reduced the capacity utilisation.
Huntsman Corporation is a publicly traded global manufacturer and marketer of differentiated and specialty chemicals with 2018 revenues of more than USD9 billion. Its chemical products number in the thousands and are sold worldwide to manufacturers serving a broad and diverse range of consumer and industrial end markets. The company operate more than 75 manufacturing, R&D and operations facilities in approximately 30 countries and employ approximately 10,000 associates within its four distinct business divisions.
MRC