UPDATE: US Gulf Coast chemical plants reel from cold snap
Jonathan Lopez
21-Jan-2025
HOUSTON (ICIS)–Cold weather in the US Gulf Coast on Tuesday is expected to disrupt petrochemicals operations in Texas and Louisiana as companies take preventive measures.
Temperatures fell sharply overnight from Monday and are expected to stay lower than the average for the time of the year in coming days, with potential rain, sleet and snow.
The Houston metropolitan got snow in the early hours of Tuesday. The city is to record freezing temperatures all nights this week to Friday (see bottom table).
CHEMICALS PLANTS
US Gulf
Coast crude and petrochemicals players’
memories of the last disrupting cold snap in
2024 and winter storm Uri in 2021 are still
fresh, with many fearing similar disruption
this week as key petrochemicals hubs in the
area are set to witness a similar cold snap.
In such a scenario, companies have done all they could to minimize the disruption, although some factors could be outside their control despite the preparations.
Germany’s chemicals major BASF said in a written response to ICIS late on Monday that its operations in Freeport, Texas, would “continue to run at as much capacity as possible” but conceded that potential snowfall could greatly complicate access to and from the site.
As of Monday, BASF said: “[Due to the snow] roads possibly being impassable. As a result, BASF will have ride out crews arriving Monday evening and remaining until conditions improve, which is expected to be on Wednesday late morning,” said a spokesperson for the company.
“Non-critical employees will work from home. The BASF site in Vidalia, Louisiana, will idle operations beginning Monday evening with a planned restart of Wednesday at noon.”
As Houston recorded heavy snowfall overnight, BASF was enquired again about its impact on Freeport, but the company had not responded to the request at the time of writing.
BASF’s spokesperson added the company’s sites in Geismar and North Geismar, in the state of Louisiana, would continue to run as normal.
In another written response to ICIS, a spokesperson for Brazil’s polymers major Braskem said the company had activated its severe weather preparedness plan for its assets in La Porte, Seadrift, and Oyster Creek, all in Texas.
“We will continue to monitor the severe weather and follow our protocols to ensure our team members and assets are safe during this time. We are working with our clients to minimize the impact of this weather event,” it added.
A spokesperson for CPChem also said the company was monitoring the weather and “taking steps to prepare” its plants for any potential impact.
A spokesperson for European chemicals major INEOS said the company’s olefins, polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) units “have initiated winter storm” protocols.
LyondellBasell would not comment. A spokesperson for the company said to ICIS: “As a matter of practice, we don’t provide specific details about our units, operational status, production figures, or supply for competitive reasons.”
Pre-emptive shutdowns and operational disruptions reported so far include:
- BASF TotalEnergies cracker shuts down due to weather
- Formosa shuts Louisiana PVC unit ahead of freeze
- GCGV Portland, Texas, EG site down ahead of freezing temperatures
- Indorama’s Clear Lake, Texas, EG site down for winter weather
- Indorama Lake Charles cracker shut due to weather
- Indorama shuts Port Neches, Texas, cracker ahead of winter storm
- Indorama’s Port Neches, Texas, EG unit down ahead of winter weather
- Ingleside, Texas, cracker shut before winter storm
- LACC Lotte/Westlake Louisiana cracker and EG unit down ahead of winter weather
- Lyondell Channelview, Texas, crackers flaring on operations issues
- Lyondell La Porte, Texas, cracker sees weather-related flaring
THREAT OF POWER OUTAGES AND GAS
OUTAGES
While industrial plants
can avoid direct damage from cold weather, they
can still be subject to power outages or the
loss of natural gas supplies.
If the forecasts for sleet and snow hold true, then this could cause powerlines to snap. Spikes in demand for heating can overwhelm the power grid in Texas, leading to widespread blackouts.
Chemical plants and refineries rely on electricity to power motors and pumps.
As of Tuesday, power supply should be sufficient to meet demand through 28 January, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the flow of electricity in most of the state.
The electricity grid in Texas was holding up reasonably well as of Tuesday morning, with nearly 48,000 power outages recorded according to Poweroutage.us.
The figure is reasonably low for Texas’ grid standards and was much lower than the more than 80,000 outages reported in California, a US state with similar population to Texas which is still reeling from wildfires around Los Angeles.
Cold temperatures can also affect the flow of natural gas, potentially causing freeze-offs during which water or hydrates freeze or can create blockages.
One such freeze-off caused on Monday a shutdown of a scrubber at an amine treater in Winkler county in west Texas, according to a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Low temperatures could disrupt operations at the plants that process natural gas.
Since 2021, cold weather has disrupted US natural gas production during every winter, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
PROLONGED STRETCH OF FREEZING
TEMPERATURES
The following table
shows the weather forecast for the Houston
metropolitan area this week, with temperatures
listed in Fahrenheit first and, in brackets, in
Celsius.
Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
High | 36 (2.2) | 42 (5.6) | 48 (8.9) | 52 (11) |
Low | 22 (-5.6) | 29 (-1.7) | 29 (-1.7) | 37 (2.8) |
Source: National Weather Service
Eric Berger, an analyst at Houston’s weather blog Space City Weather, said on Tuesday that infrastructure disruption should have cleared by Wednesday morning, although in some locations it may last practically all day.
“After a cold start, high temperatures on Wednesday are expected to reach 40 degrees [Fahrenheit] or even a little warmer under sunny skies. The combination of mostly sunny skies and sublimation should allow for roads to mostly dry out, but for some locations, this may not happen until after noon,” said Berger.
“I realize the uncertainty is no fun, but such snow and ice events are relatively rare in Houston, so we are working on limited data about local roads and their response to icy conditions. Most of Houston will fall into the upper 20s [Fahrenheit] on Wednesday night.”
Front page picture: Houston’s suburbs after
heavy snowfall overnight
Source:
Adam Yanelli/ICIS
Additional reporting by Al Greenwood, John Donnelly and Melissa Wheeler
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