Automaker Stellantis adjusts N American production amid chip shortage, supply chain woes

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Stellantis has announced additional production outages for July and August as the global microchip shortage and supply chain constraints persist.

The automaker said on Thursday that production will remain down at the Belvidere, Illinois, plant through the end of July. The week of 19 July was already scheduled as a down week.

The Jefferson North plant in Detroit, Michigan, will be down through 9 August. The week of 2 August was previously scheduled as a down week to perform maintenance and begin work for future models.

The Toluca plant in Mexico and the Windsor plant in Canada will remain down through the rest of July.

Some production is resuming, including the Sterling Heights assembly plant in Michigan, which restarts the week of 26 July, and the Toledo, Ohio, plant, which resumes operations the week of 19 July.

The global shortage of microprocessors, which are used to control the engine, antilock brakes, power steering, fuel-monitoring system and heating and air conditioning in modern vehicles, arose as economies began to reopen from coronavirus lockdowns, which led to a surge in demand.

The auto industry is a major end-market for petrochemicals and contributes about a third of the raw material costs of an average vehicle.

The automotive sector drives demand for chemicals such as polypropylene (PP), along with nylon, polystyrene (PS), styrene butadiene rubber (SBR), polyurethanes and MMA/PMMA.

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