Norway’s Sunde declares force majeure on styrene

14 October 2008 17:31  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--Norwegian expandable polystyrene (EPS) producer Sunde has declared force majeure on styrene supplies effective immediately due to essential maintenance at its Alesund plant, a company source said on Tuesday.

 

“We have some urgent and imperative maintenance to be done, and we felt that this was the time,” the source said. 

 

He said that the plant would need to be shut down for three weeks and confirmed that force majeure had been declared on styrene supplies, which was projected to last for around one month.

 

A statement released by Sunde said that the company’s EPS raw material plant “[would] be shut down for a three-week period as from 3 November”. 

 

In the statement, CEO Karl Johan Sunde said that the outage was necessary to extend the facility’s steam plant capacity.  This process had been hindered by a delay in approval from local authorities, which they later granted. 

 

At the same time as the installation of the steam plant, the main electrical power steering unit would be replaced, said Sunde.  Necessary repairs to styrene tanks would also be conducted, he added.

 

Market participants held that this latter maintenance was the main reason for the force majeure on supplies.

 

The company source said that the necessary equipment had been at the plant for “quite some time”, but that regulatory approval had only recently been given.

 

According to ICIS plants and projects, the company’s plant has a maximum production capacity of 40,000 tonnes/year.

 

Spot styrene was talked within a $1,180-1,190/tonne (€873-881/tonne) FOB (free on board) Rotterdam range, with market participants noting little effect from the force majeure.

 

($1 = €0.74)

 

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By: Peter Salisbury
+44 20 8652 3214

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