MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dow said its sites along the US Gulf Coast reported no major damage from Hurricane Laura, according to Chemweek.
Dow’s sites in Sabine, Beaumont, Deer Park, La Porte, Bayport and Texas City, Texas shut down operations prior to Laura making landfall. Dow's Freeport, Texas site continued operating as did facilities across Louisiana. Dow said it has not identified any significant structural damage or flooding at any of the facilities.
"We are beginning the process of restarting our sites and expect that Deer Park, La Porte, Bayport and Texas City will be fully operational on Tuesday," Dow said. "While our sites in Sabine and Beaumont experienced very minor damage, startup of these assets will progress as external infrastructure allows. While Dow experienced very limited logistics impacts due to the storm, we continue to assess impacts to infrastructure in the region."
As MRC reported earlier, Dow Chemical conducted a 45-day scheduled maintenance at its propane dehydrogenation (PDH)unit in Freeport, Texas, from 8 July, 2020. This PDH unit has the capacity of 750,000 mt/y of propylene.
We also remind that most chemical production facilities in the region between Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, have shut down in preparation for Hurricane Laura, which was forecast to make landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border last Wednesday night or early Thursday. Several olefin crackers and associated derivative polymer units have been shut down, as has about 2.5 million b/d of refining capacity.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and PP.
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
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