Released on 02/01/13

Force majeure has been declared on butadiene (BD) production from Naphtachimie’s unit in Lavera, France, following an incident at the associated cracker, sources at the plant’s co-owners said on Wednesday.

The Naphtachimie cracker, which has a nameplate capacity of 120,000 tonnes/year of BD, 775,000 tonnes/year of ethylene and 540,000 tonnes/year of propylene, is joint-owned by INEOS and Total.

An INEOS spokesman said that the Naphtachemie cracker had experienced a technical issue on the afternoon of 22 December which affected one of the main compressors, leading to a complete shutdown of the facility.

There were no casualties or environmental impact, the spokesman said, but a “range of products manufactured at the facility could be impacted for up to four weeks.”

A source at Total confirmed that force majeure had been declared on BD, but declined to provide any further details.

A local media report said there had been a fire on an oil compressor at the cracker.

No confirmation of the force majeure was received from INEOS.

Source ICIS News