MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics' force majeure and sales control on its polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) from its Point Comfort, Texas, complex will last through the end of July, the company has told its customers, as per Plastemart.
All PP and PE units have resumed production, the company said in a letter to customers sent late Monday and obtained by obtained by S&P Global Platts on Tuesday.
Capacities at Point Comfort complex include almost 1.5 mln mtpa of high density polyethylene, 582,000 mt/year of linear low-density polyethylene, 1.9 mln mt/year of polypropylene. Polyethylene and polypropylene markets have been talked tighter in July, with some sources pointing to the outages as one contributing factor. Formosa Plastics declared force majeure on both polymers June 27, three days after multiple units at Point Comfort - about 90 miles from Corpus Christi - unexpectedly went down due to a weather-related event, which multiple sources with knowledge of company operations attributed to lightning strikes.
Formosa Plastics spokesman Steve Rice Friday said all lines were running, or "scheduled to be so very soon." Multiple market sources said late last week that the final polyethylene line - which produces high density polyethylene grades including high molecular weight film - could be back up by the weekend. Formosa Plastics said in the letter that all August orders would be subject to ability to suppl, "based upon ongoing normal operations of our facilities."
As MRC informed before, in 2015, Formosa Plastics unveiled plans to build a monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant and another polyethylene (PE) unit at its Point Comfort complex in Texas, according to air-permit applications. The initial pages of the applications do not list the capacity of the plants or the grade of the PE. Construction on the second PE plant started in Q4-2015, and it should start operations in December 2017. Construction on the MEG plant started in November 2015, and operations should start in September 2017.
Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company's plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
MRC