DATE : 2014-03-05
DuPont has declared force majeure for its supply of US vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) because of a Texas plant outage this week, the company said in a letter to customers obtained on Wednesday.
Dated 4 March, the letter confirmed what VAM sources had told ICIS. The letter stated that operating issues and a resulting outage at DuPont's La Porte unit had brought about the force majeure.
"At this time, the supply of our vinyl acetate monomer product is expected to be impacted through the month of June," the letter stated.
Shutting down the 335,000 tonnes/year VAM unit for four months, or a third of the year, will mean lost production of about 111,667 tonnes for DuPont at the site.
For an estimate of what the force majeure might cost DuPont, at the current VAM spot (FOB export) price assessed by ICIS averaging $1,285/tonne, the outage could mean $143.5m in lost production.
The DuPont letter, signed by Michael Hillary, olefins and VAM commercial director, said DuPont would contact customers about their allocations and other details regarding current and future orders.
SOURCE Icis News