TotalEnergies has declared a force majeure on styrene deliveries from its 200,000-barrel-a-day petrochemical plant at Gonfreville in northern France, multiple sources told OPIS this week.

TotalEnergies declined to provide OPIS with further details, adding that it does "not comment on operations".

However, Chemical Market Analytics by OPIS has seen a copy of the force majeure letter sent to TotalEnergies' customers, which provides information about the disruption to supply.

The letter reported that "on Wednesday, April 3, the Normandy (Gonfreville) steam cracker suffered a shutdown of all its operating units due to an electrical incident." The operator said that the incident resulted in TotalEnergies being unable "to supply the full quantity of styrene under our contract. Therefore...we declare the electrical incident on our installations as a force majeure situation."

The letter didn't say how long the force majeure would last, but a source told CMA that styrene production at the site is expected to resume early next week.

Styrene supplies in Europe are tightening, and sources suggested the force majeure was also contributing to a rise in spot prices for the aromatic in the region this month. Spot styrene prices for April delivery traded at $1,620/metric ton on April 2, market sources told OPIS at the time, but then rose steadily to average $1,800/mt as of April 10.

The 600,000-mt/year styrene monomer unit at Gonfreville, is Europe's second-largest production facility of this aromatic. The same plant declared force majeure on toluene and xylene in March that was lifted on March 27.

Styrene is used to produce latex and polystyrene resins, which are in turn used to make many end-user products, including plastic packaging, insulation and synthetic rubber.


This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.


--Reporting by Yazdi Merchant, ymerchant@opisnet.com; Editing by Rob Sheridan, rsheridan@opisnet.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

04-12-24 1242ET