Moscow – Formosa Plastics USA, a subsidiary of a major global manufacturer of petrochemical products, resumed production of ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol at Point Comfort, Texas, USA on March 16, which had been closed earlier due to a winter storm. the company said in a statement to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Formosa Plastics USA closed its ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol production facility at Point Comfort, TX, USA on February 8 due to a technical failure. For example, the new ethylene glycol plant EG2 was closed after a compressor shutdown due to a power failure.
Earlier it was reported that Formosa Plastics USA announced on January 15of force majeure in relation to the supply of ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol at its Point Comfort, Texas facilities. On January 4, Formosa stopped a new production of ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol with a capacity of 620 ktpa and 740 ktpa respectively due to a shortage of raw materials. Production was resumed on 4 February.
This facility was shiftless in December as a result of an unplanned outage of a cracking unit at the facility. The statement said the leak was caused by a broken fitting on a valve in an ethylene glycol plant. The leak has been stopped.
The company intends to launch a new cracking unit at the same site with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes of ethylene per year.
Also, Formosa Plastics USA retainsplans to commission the low-density polyethylene (HDPE) / linear polyethylene (LDL) and high-density polyethylene (LDPE) plants at Point Comfort, TX, USA later this year. The capacity of the new enterprises will be 400 thousand tons of HDPE / LLDPE and LDPE per year.
Ethylene is the main raw material for the production of polyethylene (PE).
The estimated consumption of PE at the end of 2020 amounted to 2,220.64 thousand tons, which is 2% more than the same indicator a year earlier. The supply of exclusively LDPE and low-density polyethylene (HDPE) has grown.
Formosa Plastics Corporation (FCP) is a major global chemical manufacturer headquartered in Taiwan. The company mainly produces polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene, polypropylene (PP), and other petrochemical products.
