Oxea's Oberhausen plant remains shut; oxos shortage, higher spot prices

London — Oxo intermediates and derivatives supplier OXEA's force majeure at its Oberhausen site in Germany remains in place, a company spokesman said this week, while concerns also emerged of supply shortages if the situation continues for much longer.

Oxea announced force majeure on products from Oberhausen in the last week of February, following a fire at Air Liquide's synthesis gas plant at the same site, which was also shut for repairs and for an investigation into the incident to take place.

"At Oxea the situation is unchanged," Oxea said. "At Air Liquide the investigation into the causes continues. Currently no statement can be made about the restart.

Since the force majeure was announced, supplies of oxo-alcohols in Europe quickly tightened. In particular, S&P Global Platts assessed 2-eh at Eur960/mt FD NWE on Thursday, up Eur60/mt since the force majeure was declared. Market sources said 2-eh was also seen trading at Eur1,000-1,015/mt within the past two weeks due to a lack of product availability and prompt demand. Supply of European butanols is also in the balance now, according to sources, with spot prices higher. N-butanol was assessed at Eur840/mt on Thursday, up Eur30/mt since the end of February, according to Platts data.

Concerns also emerged over the timing of Oxea's outage ahead of the increase in seasonal demand, with market sources saying a sudden increase in demand has "increased loading on the operating assets."

"Yes, there are other producers, but they will soon max out," one source said. "The oxo market is heavily contracted. There is not much spot availability, if with this situation, we need to make additional spot volumes, depending on the demand; after that, consumers will have to rely on imports or cut their production rates."