Lucite’s MMA Billingham shut down for maintenance

25 September 2007 11:40  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--Lucite’s 200,000 tonne/year methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant at Billingham, UK, has been shut down for maintenance, a company source said on Tuesday.

 

“The plant was shut down at the end of last week and it is a case of so far, so good,” the source said.

 

“Everything is going to plan and there are no further details available at the moment,” the source added.

 

The producer had confirmed in late August that it was to halt production at the plant in order to perform maintenance work after reported production issues in July.

 

Sources close to Lucite have said that they expect the outage to last two to three weeks.

 

Buyers have reported throughout August and September that Lucite has asked them not to place orders for September volumes on the basis of the outage.

 

Market participants were uncertain as to the effect the shutdown would have on the market, although two producers announced fourth-quarter increases of €80/tonne ($113/tonne) last week, on the basis of expected tight supply in Europe.

 

“I’d imagine that there would be a price rise,” said one buyer last week, adding however, that “I’d guess we would say €40/tonne, they’ll say €80/tonne and we’ll end up at €60/tonne. Equally, it depends entirely on Lucite.  If they come out strong there may well be a rollover.”

 

Other producers of MMA in Europe include Degussa and Arkema.

 

($1 = €0.71)

By: Peter Salisbury
+44 20 8652 3214

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