Ineos Oxide declared force majeure on its ethylene oxide plant at Bayport, Texas, which has capacity of 420,000 metric tons per year. The unit has been in unplanned shutdown since October 16 due to technical problems.
The Bayport site includes a 375,000 t/yr monoethylene glycol unit and a 165,000 t/yr glycol ethers unit, so the outage is expected to affect supply of both products. Ineos did not comment when asked for confirmation on October 27, and no restart date has been set.
Before the force majeure, the market had estimated a surplus of 38,000–48,000 tons of monoethylene glycol in November–December, according to a producer cited by S&P Global Platts.
A polyol buyer said polyester polyol prices had continued to rise despite weak end demand, driven mainly by tighter diethylene glycol supply. Platts assessed US Gulf spot diethylene glycol at 53 cents/lb on October 23, down 2.5 cents week on week, and monoethylene glycol at 28 cents/lb, down 0.25 cents.
Ineos acquired the Bayport ethylene oxide site from LyondellBasell in 2023.
