INEOS shuts Hull VAM unit after fire, restart due on 20 March

05 March 2010 14:53  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--INEOS has shut down its vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) unit at Hull in the UK following a small fire at the distillation section of the plant, a company source said on Friday.

“The issue is totally unrelated to the recent debottlenecking that took place in Q4 (2009) and we can cover all our contractual commitments,” the source added.

The 300,000 tonne/year unit was shut down at the end of February and a restart was scheduled for 20 March. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

Prior to the outage, the producer had announced plans to increase prices by €75/tonne ($102/tonne) in order to cover the higher ethylene costs in January and February.

“It is a case of take-it or leave-it”, the source said.

While there was some evidence of contracts being settled at higher prices, the full initiative was yet to be confirmed.

“Even with the outage, supplies are still plentiful,” one customer said.

Spot prices were assessed at €660-700/tonne FD (free delivered) NWE (northwest Europe), according to global chemical market intelligence service ICIS pricing.

($1 = €0.74)

For more on vinyl acetate monomer visit ICIS chemical intelligence
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By: Jane Massingham
+44 20 8652 3214

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