Venezuela Estizulia to restart PS plant

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Estirenos del Zulia (Estizulia) is set to restart its polystyrene (PS) plant, four different sources said.

The plant shut down over a year ago because of the lack of monomer.

ICIS reported on 15 September that a the PS production was to resume once a cargo loaded with styrene monomer arrived in Venezuela.

According to the sources the cargo arrived and the PS plants were tuned up and set for restart.

One of the sources said on Thursday that the plants were schedule to restart this week. However, another source close the producer said plants yet to start.

All the four sources agreed that the restart was imminent.

Estizulia, is Venezuela’s sole PS producer, and since its shut down, transformers struggled to find resins to process.

The raw material to produce PS is either imported or provided by the state-run Pequiven.

According to one source, Pequiven stopped providing raw materials to Estizulia to focus on the production of polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE), according to another source. This information could not be confirmed by Pequiven as the company did not immediately respond to requests for further information.

Another source said the monomer will be enough to produce PS until November-December.

A third source, a transformer, said that it was expecting to receive some of Estizulia’s PS.

Sources agreed that demand remains soft across the plastic chain, including PP and PE. 

Sources said that the political turmoil, in addition to high inflation, has caused end-consumption demand to fall.