Basell restarts Carrington, UK polypropylene plant

10 May 2001 15:55  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (CNI)--European polyolefins producer Basell confirmed on Thursday that it has restarted polypropylene (PP) production at its Carrington plant in northwest England after a shutdown of about four months.

The approximately 180 000 tonne/year capacity plant was closed in January as part of Basell's plans to address what it described at the time as "a serious supply/demand imbalance in the PP industry".

Closure of the single stream Carrington plant was accompanied by the temporary shutdown of Basell PP lines in Wesseling, Germany and Bayport, Texas.

Basell, the world's largest PP producer, said the resumption of output at Carrington reflected an improved supply/demand situation in Europe.

The Carrington restart has also coincided with a reported outage at Basell's 180 000 tonne/year capacity PP plant at Pernis in The Netherlands. Further details of the situation at Pernis were not immediately available.

A spokesman for Basell, which is owned jointly by Germany's BASF and Anglo-Dutch Shell, confirmed that there were no plans to reopen the two mothballed Novolen gas-phase PP lines at Wesseling. They have a joint capacity of about 120 000 tonne/year. When Basell announced last December plans for their temporary closure it said they would remain shut for 12 to 18 months.

The spokesman also explained that the mothballed Bayport capacity would also remain shut.

By: Neil Sinclair
+44 20 8652 3214

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