Polynt to halt MA production at Ravenna, Italy for maintenance

LONDON (ICIS news)–Italian maleic anhydride (MA) producer Polynt will halt production at its 60,000 tonne/year plant at Ravenna in Italy during August for four weeks of planned maintenance, a company source said on Friday.

The exact dates of the shutdown and restart were yet to be confirmed, the source said.

Material would be stockpiled ahead of the outage to ensure contracted volumes would not be affected, the company source added.

“Contracts will not be affected, but it will mean we will be unable to offer spot material as we won’t have spare volumes,” the source said.

The announcement comes during a period of tight supply in the Europe MA market. Supplier stockpiles have been low since the fourth quarter of 2009 due to a spate of production problems, the permanent shutdown of BASF’s 115,000 tonne/year MA plant at Feluy in xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Belgium and peak season demand in the major downstream unsaturated polyesther resin (UPR) market.

BASF’s final shipment from Feluy took place during the week ending 12 March 2010.

“The MA market is very tight – we have to plan well ahead to get material,” one major MA buyer confirmed.

The majority of producers were now sold out of spot material for the remainder of June and the market was expected to remain structurally short until new capacity was brought on line or imports entered the European market in a more sustained way.

“I think the situation will not change until new sources from Asia and North America come in. This depends on exchange rates,” one producer said.

Despite the shortage of MA in Europe, imports have been erratic due to production costs in non-European regions and the strength of the US dollar against the euro, which has made imported material unattractive to European buyers.

Major European MA producer Sasol-Huntsman is scheduled to bring on-stream a 45,000 tonne/year expansion at its Moers plant in Germany on 19 January 2011. The site has a current capacity of 60,000 tonnes/year, according to ICIS plants and projects data.

Although most sources reported tight supply, some MA buyers in the Iberian Peninsula said the lifting of a force majeure at CEPSA’s 10,000 tonne/year plant at Algeciras in Spain has brought some relief.

The force majeure, declared after a major technical incident on the evening of 29 April 2010, was lifted and production returned to normal during the week ending 28 May, a company source previously confirmed.

However, because of the relatively small size of the plant, market players did not expect the restart to have a major impact on the market beyond the local area.

Due to supply constraints spot prices have increased to €1,500-1,600/tonne ($1,829-1,951/tonne) FD (free delivered) NWE (northwest Europe) for flake and €1,450-1,600/tonne FD NWE for liquid, from €1,200-1,300/tonne FD NWE for liquid and flake on 2 October 2009, according to global chemical intelligence service ICIS pricing.

($1 = €0.82)

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