INSIGHT: US Gulf chems face more freezing spells amid warmer winters

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Chemical plants and refineries along the Gulf Coast of the US will likely face another winter that will be warmer than usual but punctuated with brief periods of freezing temperatures, which could disrupt operations.

• Meteorologists expect winter temperatures in the US will be colder than the previous year but still warmer than average.
• A meteorologist in Texas warned that the state could face another brief spell of freezing temperatures similar to past winters, such as the devastating Winter Storm Uri in 2021.
• Chemical plants in the Gulf Coast still have trouble operating in freezing temperatures despite improvements made since Uri.

COLD SPELLS CONTINUE TO DISRUPT GULF COAST CHEM PLANTS
Brief spells of freezing temperatures are becoming an annual feature of winters in the Gulf Coast, even as the overall season becomes warmer, according to a presentation made earlier this year by Chris Coleman, the supervisor of operational forecasting at Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the flow of electricity in most of the state.

This upcoming winter could continue the trend.

Coleman warned that the state has a greater than average chance of suffering from freezing temperatures – even though the season as a whole will be warmer than usual.

Meteorology firm AccuWeather also warned that the US will be vulnerable to a blast of cold temperatures despite the forecast for a warm winter. Such blasts are caused by polar vortexes, and February is the most probable month when one will move across the eastern US.

AccuWeather did not say whether such a polar vortex could hit Texas.

CHANCES OF CHEM OUTAGES
For chemical plants, freezing temperatures can cause outages by disrupting operations or by blackouts caused by excessive electricity demand. Such a demand spike caused the widespread plant outages during winter storm Uri in 2021.

Since then, Texas has avoided state-wide outages despite continued cold spells and growing demand for electricity.

The state’s power grid is more reliable, and it has conducted more weatherization inspections, ERCOT said.

If the power grid in Texas holds up this winter, then chemical disruptions would be caused by freezing temperatures shutting down operations at specific plants.

Even after Uri, steps taken by some companies still did not prevent cold temperatures from disrupting their operations.

During the freeze of December 2022, TotalEnergies shut down its polypropylene (PP) units at La Porte, Texas, even though the company said it took all precautions possible through freeze protection and heat tracing.

US WINTER COOLER THAN 2023-2024
Meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expect winter temperatures will be warmer than average for the southern and eastern US.

That said, they will still be cooler than the previous year, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Those cooler temperatures have led the EIA to expect average prices for natural gas to reach $3.00/million Btu in 2025, up from $2.20/million Btu in 2024.

Natural gas is important to the chemical industry because they use it as fuel and because it influences prices for ethane, the predominant feedstock that US crackers use to make ethylene.

MORE LNG TERMINALS WILL START UP
A growing source of gas demand is made up of terminals that export liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The following table lists the terminals that should start up in 2025 and later. Capacity figures are listed in millions of tonnes/year.

Project	Developer	Capacity	Estimates Start Up
Corpus Christi Stage 3	Cheniere	10	2025
Plaquemines LNG	Venture Global	20	2025
Golden Pass LNG	ExxonMobil/QatarEnergy	15.6	2027
Port Arthur LNG	Sempra	13	2027
Rio Grande LNG Phase 1	NextDecade	17.6	2027

Insight article by Al Greenwood

Thumbnail shows ice. Image by David J Phillip/AP/Shutterstock