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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Europe's largest
methanol plant, in Norway's Tjeldbergodden industrial site, will remain closed
until further notice following a fire at the facility earlier this week,
operator Equinor told OPIS Thursday, said Chemweek.
"Production
remains shut down at Tjeldbergodden following the fire in a compressor building
at the site on Wednesday. It is too early to say when operations could
resume," says Equinor spokesperson Morten Eek. Equinor is preparing for an
internal investigation to identify the cause of the fire, according to Eek. The
900,000-metric tons/year methanol plant, owned by Equinor and ConocoPhillips,
accounts for more than 25% of European production, according to Equinor
data.
Market sources in the European methanol market said prices climbed
after the plant shut down. "It will all depend on how long the plant is out for,
how much inventory they have. Methanol [prices] in Rotterdam are up EUR10
[USD12] per metric ton in the last 24 hours," a source said.
"The market
is now close to EUR300/metric ton, we started at EUR290/metric ton," a trader
told OPIS Thursday. "There is some impact but not a huge one."
As MRC informed earlier,
Equinor (Stavanger, Norway) has confirmed that a fire broke out on Wednedsday at
2.40pm local time in a compressor house at the company's methanol plant at
Tjeldbergodden, Norway. Emergency services were dispatched and police,
fire, and health services are at the scene, the company says. The fire was put
out at 3.40pm, it says. When the fire started, site's air separation unit and
the methanol plant were shut down, Equinor says. Personnel at the factory were
evacuated and all emergency response procedures implemented, it says. Equinor's
emergency response organization was assembled and authorities were
notified.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and
polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report,
Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,594,510 tonnes in the first nine
months of 2020, up by 1% year on year. Only high density polyethylene (HDPE)
shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market
reached 880,130 tonnes in the nine months of 2020 (calculated using the formula:
production minus exports plus imports, excluding producers" inventories as of 1
January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer. |
