Nova Chemicals declares 'force majeure' on European styrene

04 April 2002 13:24  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (CNI)--Nova Chemicals has declared force majeure on European production of expandable polystyrene (EPS), polystyrene (PS) and styrene monomer (SM).

It said in a statement on Thursday that it had been forced to take this action due to the failure of several feedstock suppliers to provide sufficient SM. Nova cited in particular the power failure at Shell Chemical's Moerdijk, Netherlands complex. Although power has been restored at Moerdijk and the plants brought back onstream, Shell's force majeure declaration on SM remains in force.

Martin Hallam, European PS manager for Nova, told CNI that other SM plant outages due to maintenance turnarounds had also exacerbated an already tight styrene market.

He said Nova's force majeure would remain in effect until the supply of SM has resumed and manufacturing operations at the company's European plants have returned to acceptable levels. Hallam said customers were being put on allocation, although the percentage of contracted volumes supplied would vary according to individual circumstances. "Every effort will be made to avoid customer plant shutdowns," he said.

Nova has styrene plants at Carrington in northwest England, Breda in southern Netherlands, Berre in southern France and Ribecourt in northern France. Carrington has a nameplate capacity of 185 000 tonne/year of EPS and 75 000 tonne of PS, according to Nova. Breda has a combined PS and high performance styrenic polymers (HPS) capacity of 120 000 tonne plus 90 000 tonne of EPS. The two French plants produce only EPS, with Berre's nameplate capacity put at 63 000 tonne and Ribecourt at 90 000.

Robert Snyder, Nova vice president for styrenics sales and marketing in Europe, said in a statement that the impacts of low styrene inventories and styrene plant operating problems were rippling through the supply chain. "With a similar situation occurring in the US, coupled with increasing global demand, the market for styrene derivatives is very tight."

Last month Nova declared force majeure on SM supplies from its Bayport, Texas plant, citing operational problems after a power outage. The plant, which has a production capacity of about 570 000 tonne/year, has resumed operating but it was unclear today whether the force majeure declaration had been rescinded.

By: Neil Sinclair
+44 20 8652 3214

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