US Gulf polymer plants assessing damage: Update

Updates paragraph 2 with information from Dow

Multiple US Gulf coast polymer plants are assessing damage to see if they can safely restart following shutdowns prior to Hurricane Beryl, which made landfall Monday near Matagorda Bay, Texas.

Dow kept its plants in Deer Park, Sabine, Texas City and Beaumont, Texas, running through out the storm, a company official said. However "high sustained winds damaged local electrical infrastructure, which is impacting some assets at our site in Freeport," the official said. The company's Seadrift, Texas, site was shut down prior to the storm's landfall, and the company has begun the restart process for that unit, the company said.

Dow has approximately 1.7mn t/yr of PE capacity at its site in Freeport, Texas, as well as nearly 1mn t/yr of additional PE capacity at sites in Seadrift, Victoria, and Orange, Texas.

Baystar was heard to be running two out of its three units at its Bayport, Texas, polyethylene (PE) plant, but the company was dealing with some interruptions in rail service at the site, a source said. That site has a total capacity of around 1.03mn t/yr of PE.

Formosa Plastics pre-emptively shut down operations at its Point Comfort, Texas, site, which includes approximately 1.8mn t/yr of PE and 917,000 t/yr of polypropylene (PP) production. The company is monitoring the situation to assess any hurricane impacts and to "expedite the process of resuming full operations as soon as it is safe to do so," according to a release.

Ineos Olefins and Polymers also shut down its PE and PP units at its Deer Park, Texas; Cedar Bayou, Texas; and Chocolate Bayou, Texas, sites, in advance of the storm. The company is currently assessing impacts to the plants themselves, as well as impacts to transportation infrastructure before restarting those units, the company said in a letter to customers. Ineos has approximately 1.1mn t/yr of PE capacity at its Deer Park and Cedar Bayou sites, as well as 586,000 t/yr of PP capacity at its Chocolate Bayou and Deer Park sites.

Lyondellbasell was heard to have shut down its approximately 821,000 t/yr high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant in Matagorda, Texas, in advance of the storm. The company did not respond to requests for comment on the operational status of those and other Gulf coast units.

The status of multiple other PE and PP units in the region was not immediately available.

Market participants said they expect it could be a slow start-up process for many of the polymer units as facilities and many plant employees are still without power, and as companies also deal with rail and other transportation interruptions.

By Michelle Klump