Hurricane Harvey makes landfall amid refinery, plant shutdowns

Al Greenwood

26-Aug-2017

Source: NOAA/ZUMA Wire/REX/ShutterstockHOUSTON (ICIS)–Hurricane Harvey made landfall late on Friday on the coast of Texas, the National Hurricane Center said, as companies continue to shut down petrochemical plants and refineries.

Harvey struck land between the towns of Port Aransas and Port O’Connor, north of Corpus Christi, the center said. Harvey was a category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of about 130 miles/hour (209 km/hour).

In preparation for the storm, the port of Corpus Christi closed on Friday. The US Coast Guard (USCG) reported several ports along the Texas coast as closed.

Source: USCG
Source: USCG

Phillips 66 suspended operations at its Freeport terminal – which includes it new liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) export terminal – as a result of Port Freeport closing, although its other US Gulf assets continue to operate normally while implementing hurricane preparation plans.

Several refineries and chemical plants have shut down in preparation for Harvey:
-Braskem Seadrift polypropylene (PP)
-Citgo Corpus Christi refinery
-Enterprise Shoup gas processing
-Dow Seadrift operations
-Flint Hills Corpus Christi refinery east and west
-Formosa Point Comfort olefins 1 and olefins 2
-INEOS Green Lake acrylonitrile
-INVISTA Victoria nylon intermediates
-Javelina Corpus Christi gas processing
-OxyChem Ingleside ethylene and chlor-alkali

Meanwhile:
-LyondellBasell is conducting preparations at its Corpus Christi olefins plant.
-Sources said the producer has scaled back operations at its Houston refinery.
-DuPont is down at its Victoria site for a previously planned outage. It will commence start-up activities when the weather improves.
-INEOS discovered a heat exchanger tube leak at its Pasadena site. Repairs are unable to commence until weather risks pass.
-Liquefied natural gas (LNG) export construction sites are also on alert.

To view an interactive map of petrochemical plants in Texas, click here. Use the drop-down menu to see plants by products, and zoom in to see more details.

Image above: Hurricane Harvey approaches Texas. Source: NOAA/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Additional reporting by Tracy Dang

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