Shell runs Texas phenol plant at reduced rates

03 January 2008 17:44  [Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (ICIS news)--Unspecified technical problems have hit phenol and acetone production at Shell’s Deer Park Phenol 2 unit in Texas, a company source said on Thursday, adding the difficulties would affect output for most of January.

The plant, with capacity of 790m lbs/year (358,342 tonnes/year) of acetone, was still producing but running at 75% rates due to environmental limitations.

The unit was shut down at the end of November for a three-week planned maintenance turnaround, but the technical issue has kept the plant from returning to full rates.

Phenol is a co-product of acetone and is produced from cumene feedstock.

Other phenol and acetone producers in the US include Sunoco, Georgia Gulf, Dow Chemical, INEOS Phenol and JLM.

By: Heather McGuire Doyle
+1 713 525 2653

< previous article(ICIS Chemical Business podcast November 2, 2009)

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