Hurricane Harvey disrupts petrochemical industry in the US
Blog : Global chemical price

Published on September 18, 2017

Last week was completely dedicated to the tropical storm Harvey. The Texas, where the storm has hit hard was in discussion all over. This was regarded as one of the worst hurricane in the history of the US. The major refineries are located in this region of the country. All the refineries lying in this belt were closed down holding around 28-30% petchem capacity of the country.

To be specific with MEG, the country produces 2.2 million mt/year with most of the facilities located in Texas. Dow, Formosa, LyondellBasell all had declared force majeure at their facilities. If sources believed around 60% of MEG production was put on halt. The other major manufacturers like Huntsman declared the maintenance schedule for its two units. The other major manufacturer Formosa has shut down its olefins no1 and no2 unit earlier with no information about its restart schedule.

This country is one of the major importers of MEG as well. Most of its imports come from Canada. Mexico is the country where most of its MEG supplies are exported. This channel has been completely disrupted by Hurricane Harvey.

The supply chain has been severely triggered by this hurricane in the US. More than 60%of the US’s ethylene production plants have been put on halt. Ethylene and its derivatives account for about 40 percent of global chemical sales for the US.

This hurricane had a devastating impact on the Texas’s chemical industry. The country is already struggling with disruption in supply-chain where manufacturers are struggling to source the chemicals even for manufacturing of basic items like plastic jugs and other units used in day to day life.

The worst part of the story is the manufacturer has no idea to which extent there plants have been damaged until and unless they restart their units. And even with all hard work the units resume their production early, other issues like logistical challenges continue to wait. The train tracks and road tracks has been washed off and would prevent the delivering of goods on time.

The country and people will need a lot of time to recover from this major natural calamity. With support of all the other stated the life will soon get back to its track.