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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Texas state legislators
started digging into the causes of deadly power blackouts that left millions
shivering in the dark as frigid temperatures caught its grid operator and
utilities ill-prepared for skyrocketing power demand, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Hearings
are highlighting shortcomings by grid planners, electric utility and natural gas
transmission operators that led to billions of dollars in damages and dozens of
deaths. Consumer advocates have called for more stringent regulation of
utilities and a review of retail marketing plans. "The entire energy sector
failed Texas," said NRG Energy Inc Chief Executive Mauricio Gutierrez, who
testified at the hearing.
The biggest failure was the state's natural gas
system, said Curtis Morgan, CEO of Vistra Corp, adding that without better ties
between gas producers, pipelines and power plants, the state could face future
cold weather outages. "We just couldn't get the gas at the pressures we needed,"
said Morgan, who instructed employees to buy gas at any price but could not
acquire enough to run plants.
Up to 48% of the state's power generation
was offline at times last week and at least 32 people died, including an
11-year-old boy of hypothermia in an unheated mobile home. "We owe it to them
and every Texan to make sure this never happens again," said State
Representative Ana Hernandez, noting that hospitals still have supply chain
problems and burst pipes, and some people cannot access food and water. "The
impact of this disaster was not only financial."
Utilities were ordered
to cut power to prevent a larger catastrophe, Bill Magness, CEO of the Electric
Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state's grid operator, said on
Wednesday. ERCOT, whose board is appointed by the state Public Utility
Commission, faces lawsuits by customers and a generator claiming damages from
misrepresentation and lack of planning. Six of ERCOT's 15 directors resigned
this week and a nominee withdrew before taking a seat.
ERCOT did not warn
residents that the state's power generation would not keep up with demand, even
under perfect conditions, despite warnings the week prior from utilities, Morgan
said. "We did not give people a fighting chance," Morgan said.
We remind that Royal
Dutch Shell has reported an outage at its olefins plant in Deer Park, Texas,
USA, on 5 January, 2021. The plant flared for 16 hours following unspecified
process upset. Maximum steam cracker operating rate in Texas falls to
89%.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene
(PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report,
Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,220,640 tonnes in 2020, up by 2%
year on year. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density
polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to
the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the
formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, excluding producers'
inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply of exclusively PP random copolymer
increased.
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