Formosa to shutter Delaware specialty PVC plant

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Formosa Plastics USA said on Friday that it is closing a specialty polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resin plant in Delaware at the end of September and will decommission the site by year-end.

The closure of the Delaware City, Delaware plant will affect about 100 workers, the company said in a prepared statement.

The 50-year-old facility has a nameplate capacity of about 65,000 tonne/year of dispersion-grade resins, used for flexible applications of PVC, such as floor tile, sealants and other uses.

Those operations will now be performed at the company’s Point Comfort, Texas complex with a capacity of 850,000 tonne/year. Point Comfort is a new and more efficient plant with recent expansions, the company said in its statement, declining further comment.

US market participants said that the closure of the plant has been expected, but that it took longer to prepare the Point Comfort production than anticipated.

The 400-acre (162-ha) site in Delaware City has been the site of pollution complaints.

Beside, Formosa, major US PVC  producers include Occidental Chemical, Westlake Chemical and Shintech.