Orlen Unipetrol shuts PP plant amid refinery outage

Czech Republic-based refiner and petrochemical producer Orlen Unipetrol shut its 300,000 t/yr polypropylene (PP) plant in Litvinov on 15 August after an unplanned outage at its 108,000 b/d refinery.

The PP plant shutdown was a result of issues with the steam and nitrogen supply systems. A restart timeline remains unclear, but no force majeure declaration has been made so far.

The company's 200,000 t/yr and 270,000 t/yr high density polyethylene (HDPE) plants at the Litvinov site remain operational, sources added.

Orlen Unipetrol declared force majeure on PE and PP supplies on 29 July because of a cooling system malfunction at Litvinov. The company said an outage at a cooling water system supplying its ethylene cracker had resulted in an emergency shutdown of the unit.

The company subsequently lifted the force majeure on 7 August as the cracker outage was short-lived.

By Sam Hashmi