Texas chem plants restart; power outages keep Louisiana plants shut

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Chemical plants in Texas continue to resume operations after Hurricane Laura, while those in the harder hit Louisiana remain down, as their restart schedules remain largely dependent on when power can be restored.

Hurricane Laura made landfall early on 27 August in Louisiana near the border with Texas.  The site is about 50 miles (80 km) away from Lake Charles, Louisiana, which is home to complexes owned by Westlake and Sasol as well as several other chemical plants.

The western part of the state suffered significant damage to its electrical grid, according to Entergy, the main power distributor in eastern Texas and western Louisiana.

All nine transmission lines that deliver power into the Lake Charles area are out of service, said Entergy. It owns seven of those lines, and all of them have suffered catastrophic damage.

Entergy expects to energise the first of its transmission lines into Lake Charles in mid-September, it said. Before that happens, power could remain out in Lake Charles.

Entergy warned that outage numbers could fluctuate because of thunderstorms or shutdowns needed to make repairs.

That appears to be the case, as the number of outages reported to utility companies in Louisiana rose from Thursday.

	2-Sep	3-Sep	4-Sep
Louisiana	227,430	162,687	188,654
Texas	41,330	16,183	12,797

Source: PowerOutage.US

Restart reschedules for chemical plants in Louisiana are starting to reflect Entergy’s timeline for restoring power, even if those units suffered little damage from the storm.

LyondellBasell is aiming to restart its polypropylene (PP) plant in Lake Charles in two to three weeks, in line with estimates from their energy provider, Entergy, according to a company spokesperson.

The disruptions caused by Hurricane Laura have led some companies to declare force majeure. Westlake recently did so on styrene from its plant in Lake Charles.

A Westlake spokesperson said that it could be weeks before the plant comes back up as the area is without power.

Indorama has reduced its allocation for US monoethylene glycol (MEG) to 30%, amid a force majeure the company declared earlier this week, according to market sources.

As part of the force majeure, the company previously put buyers on a 50% allocation for MEG, sources said.

More than one third of US MEG production capacity is included in force majeure declarations, with several plants in the Lake Charles area of Louisiana shut down.

Indorama also declared force majeure on monopropylene glycol (MPG) and propylene oxide (PO) from its plant in Port Neches, Texas. Port Neches is near the border with Louisiana,

Other plants in Texas continue to resume operations. Covestro is restarting polycarbonate (PC) and methylene diphenyl diisocycanate (MDI) production in Baytown, Texas.

Additional reporting by Deniz Koray, Zachary Moore, Antoinette Smith and Adam Yanelli

Thumbnail image shows repairs being done to power lines. Source: Entergy

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