Hurricane Harvey hours from landfall as Texas shutdowns continue

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Braskem and Enterprise Products are the latest to announce shutdowns among a number of plants and refineries along the Texas coast, as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted on Friday that Category 3 Hurricane Harvey will make landfall overnight.

Source: NOAA

Harvey is moving toward the northwest near 10 miles/hour (17 km/hour), NOAA said, adding the hurricane will make landfall on the middle Texas coast tonight or early Saturday.

Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 125 miles/hour (205 km/hour) with higher gusts, with some additional strengthening possible before Harvey makes landfall, the administration said.

In preparation for the storm, the port of Corpus Christi closed on Friday. The US Coast Guard (USCG) reported several ports along the Texas coast as closed.

Source: USCG

Several refineries and chemical plants have shut down in preparation for Harvey:

-Citgo Corpus Christi refinery
-Dow Seadrift operations
-Flint Hills Corpus Christi refinery east and west
-Formosa Point Comfort olefins 1 and olefins 2
-INEOS Green Lake acrylonitrile
-INVISTA Victoria nylon intermediates
-Javelina Corpus Christi gas processing
-OxyChem Ingleside ethylene and chlor-alkali

Meanwhile:
-LyondellBasell is conducting preparations at its Corpus Christi olefins plant.
-DuPont is down at its Victoria site for a previously planned outage. It will commence start-up activities when the weather improves.
-INEOS discovered a heat exchanger tube leak at its Pasadena site. Repairs are unable to commence until weather risks pass.
-Liquefied natural gas (LNG) export construction sites are also on alert.

To view an interactive map of petrochemical plants in Texas, click here. Use the drop-down menu to see plants by products, and zoom in to see more details.