IIR Top Chemical Processing News Today: May 14th 2020

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North America
LyondellBasell Industries has rescheduled its major 90-day turnaround of the 2.6 billion-pound-per-year QE1 ethylene unit in La Porte, Texas. The turnaround, which was originally planned to take place in September, has been rescheduled to February 2022 due to COVID-19.

Formosa Plastics continues final commissioning activities at its new 881 million-pound-per-year LDPE unit in Point Comfort, Texas. Startup of the unit has been delayed to July or August, due to the company's health protocols related to COVID-19 and reducing staff on-site.

International
Borealis has experienced an unplanned outage at the 1.6 billion-pound-per-year ethylene unit at its Stenungsund Polyolefins plant in Sweden. The outage was caused by a compressor fire at the steam cracker plant that extended to a gas line. The unit is being inspected to determine the extent of the damage, and is expected to be offline for at least 10 days.

Egyptian Ethylene and Derivatives Company remains on schedule to perform a 30-day maintenance turnaround of the 1.0 billion-pound-per-year ethylene unit, which will start August 16, at its Alexandria Complex in Egypt. Expectations are to complete repairs and restart the unit by September 14.

Lonza AG has delayed the restart of a 33-day planned turnaround of the 66 million-pound-per-year ethylene unit at its Visp Complex in Switzerland. Previously scheduled for May 14, the restart now is expected to occur on May 17.

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