MOSCOW (MRC) -- Marathon Petroleum Corp's 585,000-bpd Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, on Tuesday issued a shelter-in-place notice because of a toxic leak, reported Reuters with reference to people familiar with plant operations.
Marathon and Texas City officials ordered workers and nearby residents to go indoors and close windows for over an hour due to a leak of hydrofluoric acid (HF), said the people, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity. Hydrofluoric acid forms a ground-hugging cloud at room temperature that can lead to severe health problems and even death.
Two workers were taken to a nearby medical facility as a precaution due to a chemical leak at the plant, said Marathon spokesman Jamal Kheiry. He did not disclose the chemical involved.
"The Galveston Bay Refinery's automated response systems today activated mitigation measures in response to a small chemical release," Kheiry said in a statement. "The release has been stopped and air monitoring data indicate no offsite impact."
As MRC informed earlier, most units were shut on Sunday night and Monday morning (15-16 February) at Marathon Petroleum Corp's 585,000 barrel-per-day Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, as temperatures plunged due to a Arctic cold front reaching the Gulf Coast. They resumed operations in the first half of March.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 576,270 tonnes in the first three month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
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