Europe PE force majeure cases have little impact so far

LONDON (ICIS)–A couple of cases of polyethylene (PE) force majeures in Europe have not had much impact on the market so far, sources said on Friday.

Last week, Hungary’s MOL Group declared force majeure on all supplies of PE due to a lack of feed for its polymer plants, including polypropylene (PP).

The problems are said to have occurred following a planned outage which began on 8 August and had been scheduled to last for 10 weeks.

Operations at MOL’s Danube refinery units were up and running, but the restart of its Tiszaujvaros cracker was delayed.

High density polyethylene (HDPE) capacity at the site runs at 420,000 tonnes/year, with PP output at 280,000 tonnes/year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) capacity is recorded at 65,000 tonnes/year.

This week INEOS also declared force majeure on some grades of metallocene linear low density polyethylene (MLLDPE) from its plant in Cologne, Germany, according to buyers.

They said they had received a letter in recent days, informing them of partial restrictions at the plant, which are thought to be due to technical issues.

INEOS declined to comment on the status of its plant.