Olin declares Freeport chlor-alkali FM from hurricane

US-based chlor-alkali producer Olin declared a force majeure (FM) on 10 July for its Freeport, Texas, plant after Hurricane Beryl caused significant damage.

The company said the force majeure was for all its chlor-alkali and derivative vinyl products produced at the site. Olin said it was having difficulty accessing power, raw materials, feedstocks, and other crucial services which made managing logistics and production challenging. The company was conducting a comprehensive inspection and assessment of its facility, but there was no timeline for an end to the outage.

In addition to caustic soda and chlorine, the site produces several other derivative products. The company sells spot ethylene dichloride (EDC) from Freeport to overseas vinyl producers, epoxy resin, and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) that it supplies to Shintech by direct pipeline.

Shintech buys VCM from Olin under contract to support its own polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in Freeport, which produces roughly 1.45mn tons of PVC per year. Shintech indicated earlier in the week it did not see any significant damage to its facility after the storm and was intending to restart its operations in short order.

The Olin force majeure could hinder Shintech's Freeport operations, but Shintech has not provided a timeline for its own restart and did not respond to a request for comment.

Olin also supplies Dow Chemical with chlorine by direct pipeline to run Dow's isocyanate plant in Freeport.

By Aaron May