DATE : 2014-11-06
Westlake confirmed today it began pumping feedstocks into its 260,000 t/yr styrene unit in Westlake, Louisiana, an initial step in the process of restarting production.
The company expects to ramp up run rates over the weekend and be at commercial run rates by 10 November.
The Westlake styrene unit has been offline since 15 August, when it was taken down due to poor market economics.
Since then, an outage in Europe boosted demand for US cargoes and widened the arbitrage during October and into this month. Yesterday the styrene netback to Europe was calculated at 71.35¢/lb.
SOURCE Argus