Momentive ships first volumes of BPA from Pernis during FM

27 January 2011 17:35  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS)--Momentive Specialty Chemicals is running its 160,000 tonne/year bisphenol A (BPA) plant at Pernis in the Netherlands at 75% capacity with on-spec material and its first shipments of BPA have now left the facility following a month-long force majeure (FM), a company source said on Thursday.

“We restarted BPA production on Wednesday last week [19 January] and we started producing on-spec material on Monday this week. The production rate is quite a success but we are not yet at full capacity,” the source said.

Momentive was making good progress and operations were going according to plan, the source added.

“We already started shipping BPA material yesterday,” the source said, adding that BPA and epoxy resin sales would stay on allocation.

Momentive had declared FM at its facility on 29 December after a technical problem resulted in it not being able to ship BPA, liquid epoxy resins or solutions.

It expected to be able to lift the FM next week once it was producing on-spec BPA at a reliable rate.

“It will take some time to catch up with all of our customer orders from the second half of December and January,” the source said.

The BPA market has been tight since the beginning of January, largely as a result of the shutdown, while imports had been limited.

February spot values were expected to be in the region of €1,900-2,050/tonne ($2,603-2,808/tonne), an increase of €200/tonne above the highest values in December.

January European BPA freely negotiated contracts were settled at €1,700-1,900/tonne, up €100-150/tonne from the previous month, driven by rising feedstock costs, restricted cargo availability and low inventories.

These were agreed on a free delivered (FD) northwest Europe (NWE) basis.

BPA is a chemical building block that is used primarily to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins.

Polycarbonate is a lightweight, high-performance plastic with a balance of toughness, optical clarity, high heat resistance and excellent electrical resistance.

Epoxy resins have many uses, including engineering applications such as electrical laminates for printed circuit boards, composites, paints and adhesives.

($1 = €0.73)

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By: Helena Strathearn
+44 208 652 3214

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