INEOS Phenol runs Antwerp facility at 65%

22 February 2008 10:35  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--INEOS Phenol has started up its new phenol and acetone line at Antwerp in Belgium and is running the overall unit at 65% of capacity, a company source said on Friday.

“We started up the new line on Wednesday so our total capacity at Antwerp is now 65%,” the company source said. “Step by step we are on a positive way,” the source added.

INEOS Phenol said that it hoped to slowly build up the capacity at the plant until the "new line was running stably" and hoped that its force majeure on phenol and acetone supplies would be lifted in the first half of March.

Force majeure was originally declared in October 2007 due to unplanned technical issues.

Once the new line is fully running, the Antwerp plant will produce a total of 680,000 tonnes/year of phenol and 415,000 tonnes/year of acetone, up from 510,000 tonnes/year and 311,000 tonnes/year respectively.

INEOS Phenol said it would delay the planned shutdown of its phenol/acetone facility in Gladbeck, Germany, for five months until September because of the ongoing production problems at Antwerp.

The company produces 650,000 tonnes/year of phenol and around 395,000 tonnes/year of acetone at the Gladbeck facility.

For more on phenol visit ICIS chemical intelligence

By: Julia Meehan
+44 20 8652 3214

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