MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dow says the Glycol 2 plant at its Plaquemine, Louisiana, facility is in "recovery mode" after a vessel ruptured the morning of 3 November, reported Chemweek.
The company says there were no injuries, nor have any offsite emissions been detected, and other production units at the site continue to run normally.
The Glycol 2 plant includes an ethylene oxide production unit and downstream production of isopropanolamines and alkyl alkanolamines, according to a permit issued by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
According to local news reports quoting a Dow spokesperson, the vessel is a tank that contained water and small levels of sulfuric acid, ethylene oxide, and nitrogen. No more than about 28 pounds of ethylene oxide could have been released from the tank, according to the Dow representative.
The Louisiana Operations has 23 production units manufacturing more than 50 different intermediate and specialty chemical products, such as chlorine and PE, that are used to produce cosmetics, detergents, solvents, pharmaceuticals, adhesives, plastics for a variety of packaging, automotive parts, and electronics components.
As MRC wrote earlier, Dow Chemical shut its ethylene cracker No. 3 at its Plaquemine, Louisiana site with the annual production of 758,000 mt for expansion from mid-September to end-November 2016. After the restart this cracker can produce by 250,000 mt of ethylene more than before.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polyprolypele (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,589,580 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 976,790 tonnes in January-September 2019, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.
The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene (PS), polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
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