Grangemouth back onstream

17 July 2000 00:00  [Source: ICB]

BP Amoco is gradually bringing production back onstream at Grangemouth, UK, after an outage since late May. A spokesperson confirmed polymer production at the site, which includes high density polyethylene and linear low density polyethylene together with a 75 000 tonne/year butadiene extraction plant, had been restarted.

The 430 000 tonne/year KG cracker was also restarted during the week beginning 10 July, while the re-commissioning of the320 000 tonne/year G4 cracker was planned for the following week. BP Amoco was also restarting its troubled benzene and ethanol units last week.

The outage of more than one month due to a ruptured steam pipe saw the entire site at Grangemouth paralysed and prompted BP Amoco to declare force majeure on both hdPE and butadiene.

Meanwhile, Equate said it had resumed normal operating rates at its polyethylene, ethylene glycol units and cracker at Shuaiba, Kuwait, the weekend of 8-9 July as planned. The plants had been brought down by an explosion at the nearby Mina al-Ahmadi refinery on 25 June (ECN 3-9 July).

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