MOSCOW (MRC) -- Borealis has announced force majeure on its feedstocks and cracker supplies from its Porvoo, Finland cracker, which is expected to impact supply balance this week, reported S&P Global.
Thus, the force majeure was announced on 11 November at the company's 400,000 mt/year of ethylene and 223,000 mt/year of propylene cracker because of technical issue. The failure was outside of Borealis' scope of responsibility, a company spokesperson confirmed.
The cracker was shut down for repair works. Its restart is expected in early December.
As MRC informed earlier, Borealis announces that its new naphtha cavern in Porvoo, Finland has now been safely commissioned as of October 2020. Having invested around EUR25 million in the construction of this 80,000 m3 facility, Borealis can now source and store naphtha for its Porvoo operations from the global market in a more flexible, cost-efficient, and secure way. The cavern can also accommodate renewable naphtha, making it possible for Borealis customers in future to draw on certified renewable polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE), as well as renewable base chemicals, ethylene, propylene and phenol.
We remind that the light-feed 625,000-metric tons/year Borealis steam cracker at Stenungsund, Sweden, is expected to restart operations in the fourth quarter this year after a fire broke out at the plant in May, 2020. The cracker has been under force majeure ever since after the blaze at the plant on 10 May, which was subsequently brought under control the following day.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and PP.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,594,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, up by 1% year on year. Only high denstiy polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 880,130 tonnes in the nine months of 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports plus imports, excluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.
Borealis is a leading provider of innovative solutions in the fields of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers. With headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Borealis currently employs around 6,500 and operates in over 120 countries.
MRC