Canada's NOVA re-commissions Ontario LDPE plant at reduced rates

13 March 2012 17:38  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS)--NOVA Chemicals has begun re-commissioning its 170,000 tonne/year low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant at Mooretown in southern Ontario at reduced rates following an outage late last year, the CEO of the Canada-based petrochemicals major said on Tuesday.

“We have confidence that we can restore a significant fraction of [Mooretown’s] nameplate capacity,” CEO Randy Woelfel told analysts during NOVA’s 2011 fourth-quarter conference call.

However, NOVA still needs to carry out extensive repairs to return the facility to full operations. Those repairs are expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2013, Woelfel said.

Woelfel said that the outage, which he described as a process upset, was a major disappointment for NOVA.

“But it also has been a critical learning experience for us to become a stronger supplier to our customers,” he said.

“As we return to operations, we expect to be a better, more reliable supplier going forward, and we remain committed to the LDPE business and to our growth plans,” he said.

NOVA plans to debottleneck the LDPE plant at Mooretown, the company said earlier.

The LDPE plant is the smallest component in NOVA’s ethylene/polyethylene portfolio, representing about 10% of the company’s total polyethylene (PE) capacity, Woelfel added.

As such, the problems at the plant would only have a modest impact on NOVA’s results going forward, he said.

Following the outage in early December, NOVA later declared force majeure on LDPE from Mooretown, industry sources told ICIS.

NOVA acquired the site, which also includes 210,000 tonnes/year of high density polyethylene (HDPE) capacity, in 1987 from Union Carbide, a company that was later acquired by Dow Chemical.

By: Stefan Baumgarten
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