MOSCOW (MRC) -- MEGlobal will immediately start supplying monoethylene glycol (MEG) to Asian customers at minimum contract volumes for an unspecified period due to a supply shortage, the producer said in a note to clients Thursday, as per Apic-online.
Implementation of the measures in the Asian region would include the Middle East, Turkey, India and Pakistan markets.
MEGlobal is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kuwait's petrochemicals major Equate Petrochemical, which has MEG facilities at Shuaiba in Kuwait.
Equate will be conducting a major turnaround lasting 30-40 days at its "bigger unit" in Kuwait during the fourth quarter, which will result in a loss of MEG production of 70,000-100,000 mt, a company source said.
Equate's MEG capacity in Kuwait has a nameplate capacity of 1.2 million mt/year.
Adding to the supply woes is the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on the US Gulf Coast, which has meant its US facilities have been closed, the company source added. As a result, the MEG supply from MEGlobal will be significantly affected in the fourth quarter.
"In fact, our major supply partner in the USGC has declared force majeure to MEGlobal," the note said.
As MRC reported before, MEGlobal plans to construct a new world-scale MEG manufacturing facility at Dow’s Oyster Creek site in Freeport, Texas. The new Oyster Creek MEG facility will be owned by MEGlobal and is the company’s first manufacturing unit in the US. The new MEGlobal plant will create 1,400 construction jobs at the project’s peak, and the company will employ approximately 50 new workers when it goes on stream in mid-2019.
MEG is used in a number of market applications, including polyester fibers, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles and packaging, antifreeze and coolants, paints, resins, deicing fluids, heat transfer fluids and construction materials.
Established in 1995, Equate Petrochemical Company is an international joint venture between Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), The Dow Chemical Company (Dow), Boubyan Petrochemical Company (BPC) and Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company (QPIC). Commencing production in 1997, Equate is the single operator of a fully integrated world-scale manufacturing facility producing over 5 million tons annually of high-quality petrochemical products which are marketed throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe.
MRC