Dow declared force majeure on high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) produced at its St Charles, Louisiana, facility this week in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida.
Dow has approximately 847,000t/yr of LLDPE/HDPE swing capacity at the site, located near its Taft, Louisiana operations.
The St Charles units are among the approximately 3.75mn t/yr of PE capacity, roughly 18pc of total US PE capacity, that went down in advance of the storm, which came ashore near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on 29 August.
Other sites, including ExxonMobil's 1.6mn t/yr Baton Rouge, Louisiana, plant, and Dow's 1.3mn t/yr Plaquemine, Louisiana, site, have begun the restart process. However, Dow's Taft and St Charles sites were more directly in the path of the storm.
While Dow has said its Louisiana sites did not sustain any major damage, infrastructure in the St Charles area is believed to be in worse shape. An 8 September customer letter said the company is experiencing "disruptions in operations, logistics, and raw material supply" at the site.
Dow had previously declared force majeure on HDPE blow molding products on 7 May. That force majeure remains in place for now, sources said.
The company said it will inform customers of their allocation levels in the coming days.
The new force majeure comes as the US PE market had just returned to more normal operating levels after extensive outages following the February winter storm that halted production throughout the US Gulf coast region.
While most US PE producers have announced an additional 5¢/lb price increase for September, market participants are not expecting those increases to take hold, unless the outages extend for several weeks. The PE market has seen 19¢/lb of increases in the last five months, and US prices are well above global levels.
