LyondellBasell La Porte, Texas, cracker offline: sources

LyondellBassel's La Porte, Texas, cracker was heard to be offline again after a short-lived restart, sources familiar with operations July 23.

The cracker had been confirmed as back online July 20, but, according to one market source, it was shut again not long after.

The 1.5 million mt/year cracker was heard to be shut during the last week of June. It was originally estimated to resume operations within one to two weeks, but a source familiar with LyondellBasell operations said a startup scheduled for the weekend of July 10-11 was unsuccessful. Sources estimated July 20 that production had resumed over the weekend between July 16-18.

However, the market source said the unit only remained only for about six hours before it was shut again. The source said it was online long enough for word of the restart to spread.

LyondellBasell did not respond to requests for comment.

The sources cited the outage, leading to continued, if stabilized, high prices.

S&P Global Platts last assessed ethylene prices July 23 at 47.75 cents/lb FD Mont Belvieu, and 52.50 cents/lb Choctaw-pipe.