UpdateLouisiana plants restart after Gustav

10 September 2008 01:39  [Source: ICIS news]

(Adds updates in paragraphs 12-14)

HOUSTON (ICIS news)--Many chemical plants in Louisiana were restarting their plants following disruptions caused by Hurricane Gustav, companies said on Tuesday.

One company confirmed a partial lifting of the force majeure it declared last week.

Six companies had declared a force majeure as a result of power outages or other disruptions caused by the storm. 

As of 11:00 hours Houston time (16:00 GMT) on Tuesday, power had been restored to 82% of the Louisiana customers served by Entergy, the state's main electricity provider.

Entergy should restore power to all of the state by the end of 1 October, the company said.

Already, PPG Industries lifted its force majeure on chlorine, ethyl chloride, perchloroethylene (perc), trichloroethylene (TCE), 1,1,1-trichloroethane and hydrogen, the company said.

The declaration followed disruptions at its complex in Lake Charles, the company said.

PPG's force majeure remained on liquid caustic soda, ethylene dichloride (EDC) and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), the company said. PPG has maintained order control on its Pels dry caustic-soda beads.

Occidental Chemical (OxyChem) had declared force majeure on caustic soda as a result of disrupted operations at its Louisiana plants in Taft, Geismar and Convent, the company said.

All three plants had problems accessing feedstock and getting power, said Richard Kline, OxyChem spokesman.

The company's Taft plant has power, and it was back up at nearly 100%, he said.

Geismar and Convent also have power, Kline said. However, they were still in the start-up phase.

If all goes well, Geismar and Convent could resume operations by the end of the week, Kline said.

Georgia Gulf had declared force majeure on caustic soda as a result of disruptions at its Plaquemine plant.

The company is now in the process of restarting the plant, a company executive said.

Sasol’s 10,000 tonne/year Lake Charles n-butanol plant in Louisiana was back on line, the company said. The plant experienced no disruptions in shipments because it drew from existing inventory and some storage in other locations, the company said.

Westlake has restarted its Geismar and Lake Charles plants and expected them to be operating at full production rates within the next two days, said company spokesman David Hansen.

Westlake’s Geismar plant makes polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for its downstream operations. Its Lake Charles plant has a production capacity of more than 1m tonnes/year of ethylene, 362,000 tonnes/year of polyethylene and 220,000 tonnes/year of styrene, according to ICIS plants and projects.

In other news, CF Industries has restored electrical power and natural gas supplies to its nitrogen complex in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, the company said. CF Industries was testing circuitry and equipment, in preparation for start up by mid-week.

If start up proceeds as expected, all units at the complex should be in production by late next week, CF said.

Enterprise Products said one of its facilities in Louisiana was waiting for commercial power. Otherwise, all of its on-shore sites in Louisiana are operational.

Placid Refining said its 56,000 bbl/day Port Allen refinery in Louisiana was partially up and running as of Friday.

The refinery is currently producing about half the normal daily amount of gasoline and approximately two-thirds of the normal daily amount of low-sulphur diesel fuel, the company said.

(Additional reporting by Leela Landress, Steven McGinn, Larry Terry and Brian Ford)

For more on the chemicals listed in this article, visit ICIS chemical intelligence
To discuss issues facing the chemical industry go to ICIS connect

 

By: Al Greenwood
+1 713 525 2653

For the latest chemical news, data and analysis that directly impacts your business sign up for a free trial to ICIS news - the breaking online news service for the global chemical industry.

Get the facts and analysis behind the headlines from our market leading weekly magazine: sign up to a free trial to ICIS Chemical Business.

Printer Friendly