US Evangeline Pipeline could remain down into December

John Dietrich

30-Oct-2014

US Evangeline Pipeline could remain down into DecemberHOUSTON (ICIS)–The US Evangeline Pipeline is expected to remain down longer than originally planned, possibly into December, sources said on Thursday.

The pipeline, which moves ethylene between Texas and Louisiana, was shut down on 10 October because of a pinhole leak.

Originally, sources expected the shutdown to last a week or so, with a restart set for the end of October.

However, sources said that Boardwalk Partners, which owns the pipeline, said on Tuesday that repairs will take until at least November and possibly into December, as part of the damaged part of the pipeline is exposed.

This is the second major outage the pipeline has experienced in the past year, as it was down from the third quarter of 2013 until late in the second quarter of 2014.

As a result, spot ethylene prices in Louisiana have started to climb in relation to Texas ethylene spot prices, up to as much as 8-10 cents/lb ($176-220/tonne).

However, the increase in regions is expected to be short-lived, as US producer Williams said it expects to begin selling ethylene out of its Geismar cracker in Louisiana in November.

The cracker has been down since the summer of 2013, and its shutdown has played a major part in higher spot ethylene prices in Louisiana since then.

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