Americas top stories: weekly summary

ICIS Editorial

01-Mar-2021

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Here are the top stories from ICIS News from the week ended 26 February.

Some US chem plants could take weeks to restart after winter storm
Chemical plants on the US Gulf Coast could begin to restart within days or weeks, depending on whether they have access to feedstock and utilities and whether they avoided an unexpected cold shutdown, which cokes furnaces and chunks reactors.

Styrene plant disruptions may bring further tightness to the North American EPS market
Widespread outages at upstream styrene producers in the US Gulf following last week’s winter storm could bring further supply tightness to the North American expandable polystyrene (EPS) markets.

US winter storm disrupts supply chain for automotive industry
The polar wave that swept through the US Gulf Coast has disrupted supply chains throughout the country, including intensifying the global semiconductor shortage after several chip manufacturing plants were forced to shut down.

Roehm mulls 250,000 tonne/year MMA plant at OQ Chemicals US Gulf Coast site
Roehm has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with OQ Chemicals to potentially build a 250,000 tonne/year methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant in the US Gulf Coast, the German chemicals producer said on Tuesday.

Commodity chemicals to get big earnings boost from US storm impact – Jefferies
Jefferies on Wednesday boosted profit estimates for a number of commodity chemicals companies, with significant gains for LyondellBasell, Dow, Covestro and Methanex, on the US winter storm impact.

US distributor Univar analysing inventory amid loss of US Gulf production after winter storm
US-based international chemicals distributor Univar said on Thursday that it is looking at current inventory in order to keep customers supplied amid the uncertainty of when chemical plants knocked offline in last week’s winter storm will start back up.

INEOS Styrolution declares force majeure on North American PS
INEOS Styrolution has declared force majeure on all grades of polystyrene (PS) in North America, according to a customer letter.

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