Chevron Phillips complex in Texas goes down after steam outage

The outage took place late on Friday. Chevron Phillips gets steam from a nearby Valero refinery, a market source said.

The company has a steam cracker in Port Arthur with 803,000 tonnes/year of ethylene capacity.

Valero confirmed the disruption in steam supply, saying the outage was due to a problem with a boiler at its Port Arthur refinery.

Steam should be restored on Monday, a Valero spokesperson said.

Chevron Phillips did not say when operations would resume at its own site, but emissions associated with the event were expected to last until 9 July, according to a public filing.

Ethylene spot prices continued to drop despite news of the outage.

Ethylene for June traded at 31.00 cents/lb ($683/tonne or €546/tonne), down from 32.00 cents/lb on Friday. Ethylene for July traded at 30.75-31.00 cents/lb, down from 31.50-32.50 cents/lb last week.

Chevron Phillips also produces cyclohexane in Port Arthur, according to information on the company’s website.