Shell declares force majeure EO from Moerdijk amid maintenance

18 June 2010 15:47  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--Shell Chemicals has declared force majeure on supplies of ethylene oxide (EO) from its plant at Moerdijk, the Netherlands, due to a limited build of stocks as a result of production difficulties that occurred prior to current maintenance work, a company source said on Friday.

The company declared force majeure on EO from Moerdijk on 15 June, the source said, adding that supplies of downstream monoethylene glycol (MEG) were not affected.

“We hoped to have sufficient storage. But due to process difficulties ahead of the [current] plant maintenance, we can't supply the whole [outage] period,” said the source.

The EO/MEG facility was shut down for planned maintenance on 10 June and it was expected due to restart on 1 July.

The source said the company expected material to be on-spec by 4 July and that it was hopeful that normal deliveries could also be resumed by then, provided that the facility restarts according to plan.

Shell's EO and MEG production capacities at Moerdijk are rated at 305,000 tonnes/year and 155,000 tonnes/year respectively, the source said.

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By: Heidi Finch
+44 20 8652 3214

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