MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF Total's cracker in Port Arthur, Texas, is undergoing maintenance and expected to restart on 23 July, reported S&P Global with reference to the company's statement in a filing with Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
An unexpected outage occurred at BASF Total Petrochemical’s joint-venture (JV) olefins unit at Port Arthur, Texas, on Thursday afternoon, 11 June, 2020.
The cause of the outage is being investigated, with a compressor shutdown cited as a possible factor, according to TCEQ filing.
The JV’s steam cracker at Port Arthur has a production capacity of more than 1 million metric tons/year of ethylene and 544,000 metric tons/year of propylene, according to IHS Markit data.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 595,170 tonnes in the first five month of 2020, up by 10% year on year. Deliveries of all ethylene polymers, except for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), rose partially because of an increase in capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 457,930 tonnes in January-May 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Deliveris of exclusively PP random copolymer increased.
MRC