Outage hits US Huntsman’s PO/MTBE unit at Port Neches
Al Greenwood
15-Aug-2014
HOUSTON (ICIS)–US-based Huntsman reported on Friday that its complex in Port Neches, Texas, had an outage at its propylene oxide and methyl tertiary butyl ether (PO/MTBE) unit.
The disruption happened on Thursday and was caused by an equipment failure, Huntsman said. The affected unit will be off line for two to three weeks.
As a result of the outage, the downed unit will disrupt internal supplies of PO to downstream methyl di-p-phenylene isocyanate (MDI) systems, amines, surfactants and PO derivatives, the company said.
Huntsman expects the outage will cost it $30m in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to its polyurethanes and performance products division.
Huntsman had planned maintenance in the first half of 2015. The company does not know how the current outage will affect this maintenance.
No one was injured from the outage, Huntsman
said.
The following lists the products made at Port Neches.
Product | Capacity | Unit |
Diethylene glycol | 22,000 | tonne/year |
Ethylene | 193,000 | tonne/year |
Ethylene Glycol, Mono | 255,000 | tonne/year |
Ethylene oxide | 460,000 | tonne/year |
Methyl tertiary butyl ether | 17,500 | bbl/day |
Propylene | 180,000 | tonne/year |
Propylene glycol | 65,000 | tonne/year |
Propylene oxide | 240,000 | tonne/year |
Triethylene glycol | 3,500 | tonne/year |
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