FACTBOX: Southeast Texas chemical facilities closer to restart; Louisiana facing longer outages

Houston — Some southeast Texas chemical plants were closer to restarting operations Sept. 2 as the main power provider for the region said all remaining customers in Port Arthur, Nederland, Port Neches and Groves without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura's assault would see supply restored by the end of the day.

Southwest Louisiana facilities faced longer outages given severe damage to transmission lines and other power facilities, Entergy said Sept. 1.

Chevron Phillips Chemical was restarting its 855,000 mt/year cracker in Port Arthur, according to a Sept. 2 company notice to a community hotline. The cracker initially shut on Aug. 26 ahead of the storm's Aug. 27 landfall.

That restart would leave 16.9%, or 6.97 million mt/year, of the 40 million mt/year of US ethylene capacity offline. About 29% of US ethylene capacity was offline before the storm came ashore.

Entergy, the main power provider in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, also said Sept. 2 that power in Orange, Texas, near the Louisiana state line was expected to be restored by Sept. 4.

However, the Lake Charles, Louisiana, petrochemical hub remained without power after taking a direct hit from the storm, which packed 150 mph winds upon landfall.

Entergy said a storm team of 8,300 people, with more to come, was in Lake Charles to rebuild a power grid severely damaged by the storm. All nine transmission lines that move power to the Lake Charles area remained out of service.

The company expects to energize the first of those repaired or replaced transmission lines in two weeks, followed by other transmission facilities.

"The company expects it will be about two to three weeks before power is available to customers in the Lake Charles area who can safely receive it," Entergy said. "While not impacting the expected restoration of service to residential customers, initial estimates are it will take weeks to rebuild all transmission lines in Calcasieu and Cameron parishes. Until that work is complete, resumption of normal service could be limited."

Here are operations and pricing effects of Hurricane Laura's aftermath:

FORCE MAJEURES

**CP Chem: Declared Sept. 1 on US polyethylene.

**Westlake Polymers: Declared Aug. 31 on US PE.

**Sasol: Declared Aug. 31 on all North American PE, including all linear low density PE and high density PE grades.

**Westlake Chemical: Declared on Aug. 31 on all North American PVC and vinyl chloride monomer.

**Ineos Olefins & Polymers USA: Declared Aug. 26 on HDPE at 460,000 mt/year unit in La Porte, Texas; plant is a joint venture with Sasol.

**Formosa Plastics USA: Declared Aug. 14 on PVC at its Texas and Louisiana operations; unrelated to Hurricane Laura.

SHUTDOWNS

Lake Charles

**Sasol: 1.5 million mt/year and 439,000 mt/year crackers; 470,000 mt/year LLDPE unit; 380,000 mt/year ethylene oxide/monoethylene glycol unit; a new 420,000 mt/year low density PE plant slated to start up in September. Assessing damage; restart pending availability of power.

**Westlake Chemical: three chlor-alkali plants, combined capacity of 1.27 million mt/year of chlorine and 1.36 million mt/year of caustic soda; two VCM plants, combined capacity of 952,543 mt/year; a 1.8 million mt/year ethylene dichloride plant; two crackers, combined capacity of 1.19 million mt/year; 200,000 mt/year of LLDPE capacity; 60,000 mt/year HDPE/LLDPE unit; 386,000 mt/year LDPE unit; 258,547 mt/year of styrene capacity. Assessing damage; restart pending availability of power.

**Lotte Chemical: 1 million mt/year joint-venture cracker; 700,000 mt/year MEG plant. Assessing damage; awaiting restart pending availability of power.

**LyondellBasell: 400,000 mt/year and 1 million mt/year polypropylene plants. Assessing damage; awaiting restart pending damage assessment and availability of power.

Orange, Texas

**Dow Chemical: 882,000 mt/year cracker; 236,000 mt/year of LDPE capacity; no major damage found, awaiting restart pending restoration of external infrastructure, including power.

**CP Chem: 420,000 mt/year of HDPE capacity; limited visible damage found, assessment continuing, awaiting restart pending restoration of power.

Port Neches, Texas

**Indorama Ventures: 235,867 mt/year cracker; 1 million mt/year EO/MEG unit; 238,135 mt/year propylene oxide unit; 988,000 mt/year of MTBE capacity. Minimal damage assessed, awaiting restart pending restoration of power.

Port Arthur, Texas

**Total/BASF: joint-venture 1 million mt/year cracker, was shut for maintenance pre-Laura.

RESTARTS

Beaumont, Texas

**ExxonMobil: 826,000 mt/year cracker; 650,000 mt/year and 325,000 mt/year LLDPE units; 225,000 mt/year HDPE unit; 220,000 mt/year HDPE/LLDPE unit; minor repairs needed, restarts began Aug. 28.

**Natgasoline: 1.7 million mt/year methanol facility, restart to be completed by Sept. 3.

Port Arthur, Texas

**Motiva Enterprises: 635,000 mt/year cracker; restart began Aug. 27, flaring expected to last through Sept. 1, per regulatory filing.

**CP Chem: 855,000 mt/year cracker; limited visible damage found, assessments continuing; restart began Sept. 2, per notice to community hotline.

Pasadena, Texas

**CP Chem: Three HDPE units, combined capacity of 998,000 mt/year; working to resume normal operations.

Houston

**TPC Group: 544,000 mt/year butadiene unit; restart began Aug. 29.

**Fairway Methanol: 1.3 million mt/year Fairway methanol facility in Clear Lake shut Aug. 26, restart began Aug. 28.

Baytown, Texas

**CP Chem: 1.7 million mt/year and 837,000 mt/year crackers; working to resume normal operations.

**ExxonMobil: had reduced rates at 1.25 million mt/year, 962,000 mt/year and 1.59 mt/year crackers; resumed normal rates Aug. 28.

Bayport, Texas

**Ineos Styrolution: 779,000 mt/year styrene monomer. Restart began Aug. 31, per company notice on community hotline.

**LyondellBasell: 1.16 million mt/year, 455,000 mt/year, 235,000 mt/year PP; restarted Aug. 28.

**Baystar: 400,000 mt/year joint-venture HDPE unit; assessing damage, began restarting Aug. 28.

Alvin, Texas

**LyondellBasell: 180,000 mt/year HDPE unit; restart began Aug. 29-30.

PRICES

**US spot ethylene prices on Sept. 2 held at levels reached Sept. 1: an 11-month high of 26.5 cents/lb FD Mont Belvieu; and 27 cents/lb FD Choctaw, an all-time high since S&P Global Platts began assessing Choctaw.

**US spot export LDPE and HDPE blowmolding prices reached their highest levels in months on Sept. 1, holding at those levels Sept. 2 amid multiple producers having declared force majeure in the aftermath of Laura. LDPE prices rose $110/mt to a 22-month high; LLDPE butene prices increased $99/mt; HDPE blowmolding rose $88/mt; and HDPE injection and film each rose $99/mt week on week from Aug. 26.

**September export PVC prices surged $165/mt week on week from Aug. 26 to a six-year high after Westlake Chemical's force majeure declaration Aug. 31 on PVC and VCM and Formosa Plastics USA's PVC force majeure still being in place after its Aug. 14 declaration.

**US spot methanol prices on Sept. 2 held a 4-cents/gal gain from Sept. 1 amid supply tightness from pre-storm production outages.

PORTS AND RAILROADS

**Houston Ship Channel: closed Aug. 26, reopened Aug. 27.

**Sabine-Neches Waterway: channel closed Aug. 26; on Aug. 31 parts opened with restrictions; status unchanged on Sept. 2.

**Port of Lake Charles closed Aug. 25; resumed movements Sept. 1 for vessels with a 30-foot or less draft.

**Union Pacific: On Sept. 1 service was restored to mainline network affected by Laura, including a segment linking Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Beaumont, Texas; generators will continue to be used throughout the Lake Charles area until commercial power is restored; embargoes remain in place at southwest Louisiana locations.