Braskem Texas PP unit needs 10-22 days of unplanned maintenance

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Braskem America’s polypropylene (PP) plant in Texas reported an unplanned outage on Friday because of work being done on a processor that will require maintenance of 10-22 days, according to a state filing.

The 320,000 tonne/year Oyster Creek PP unit in Freeport operates with the Dow Chemical Light Hydrocarbon 8 plant that receives an unreacted propylene stream from the PP facility, according to the filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Dow will shut down the equipment processing stream to repair it, and the stream will be routed to an air control device to prevent excess emissions to the atmosphere, the filing said.

A similar incident occurred in October. The filing said the work should end on 10 January, 2015.

Braskem bought the plant in 2011 from Dow, along with another Texas plant and two in Germany.