INEOS sees Lavera polypropylene down for eight days

18 June 2010 16:09  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--INEOS has declared force majeure from its share of the 300,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) plant at Lavera in France, the company said in a letter to customers on Friday.

Cracker issues brought PP production to a halt on Thursday 17 June, and the unit was expected to be down for 8 days, said the letter.

Total Petrochemicals, which shares PP production at the site with INEOS, declined to comment on the situation. Total already had force majeure restrictions in place on PP deliveries from Feluy, Belgium since early May, and other operational problems were still limiting PP output at Total’s PP sites, market sources said.

PP availability had been restricted for several weeks, because of a lack of propylene monomer, and other technical issues which affected PP output.

PP homopolymer net prices were trading at around €1,270-1,300/tonne ($1,568-1,605/tonne) FD (free delivered) NWE (northwest Europe), up by around 30% since the beginning of the year.

PP producers in Europe include LyondellBasell, Borealis, SABIC, Total Petrochemicals, Dow Chemical, Repsol, INEOS Olefins and Polymers, Polychim and Domo.

($1 = €0. 81)

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By: Linda Naylor
+44 20 8652 3214

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