Versalis’ Brindisi PE production remains offline

: Petrochemicals
23/11/20

A timeline for restarting polyethylene production remains unclear at two lines operated by Versalis at Brindisi, Italy, the company said today.

"Versalis is working to resume production... even though it is not in the position to define the date of restart of the polyethylene lines yet." The restart is likely to be dependent on approval from authorities.

The two PE units, each of 210,000 t/yr capacity of HDPE and HDPE/LLDPE respectively, were shut down on 13 November following a fire in and limited to the ethylene purification section. The event was resolved quickly and did not cause any injury to workers or environmental consequences, Versalis said.

The PE market has not seen a reaction to the reduced supply. No force majeure notice has emerged yet, with supply from inventory likely to be sufficient in the short term.

The associated 420,000 t/yr steam cracker and the butadiene extraction unit are running at reduced operating rates. This will also maintain supply of propylene to local polypropylene production operated by LyondellBasell.

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