TotalEnergies Resumes Operations at Petrochemical Site in Normandy
TotalEnergies, the French energy major, has announced through their social media channels that they are restarting units at their petrochemical site in Normandy, northern France. While the notice did not specify which units specifically, it did mention that noise and flaring episodes may occur from Friday, Feb. 16, 1:00 p.m. Central European Time (GMT + 1), until Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024.
The company has yet to respond to further inquiries for additional information regarding this development.
Market sources initially informed OPIS on Feb. 6 that the Gonfreville-l'Orcher refinery, with a capacity of 247,000 barrels per day, had resumed operations during the first half of January. This was a delay from its previously planned restart in mid-December the previous year.
Over the past month, the petrochemical complex located at Gonfreville has faced a series of technical issues. Multiple sources reported that a steam cracker was offline at the beginning of February, while problems with orthoxylene tanks at the same site resulted in the suspension of product transport from the complex as it could not be stored. This plant is a key supplier of orthoxylene to European buyers.
Some industry participants believe that these issues with the cracker may have prompted TotalEnergies to engage in a buying spree, as they recently purchased over 10,000 metric tons of spot styrene within the past week.
Stay tuned for more updates on TotalEnergies' efforts to restore full operations at their petrochemical site in Normandy.
Market Jitters Impact Styrene Availability
Market jitters concerning the availability of styrene, which is also related to the cracker outage, are being attributed as the primary driver behind the significant increase in spot styrene prices in February. According to data from OPIS, spot styrene prices have risen by $222.50/mt in just one week, reaching $1,505/mt on February 15.
The problem with the cracker coincides with several outages of U.S. styrene units, resulting in a substantial reduction of around 44% in domestic styrene production capacity within the U.S. market, as estimated by analysts at Chemical Market Analytics (CMA) by OPIS.
Given that the U.S. is a key supplier of styrene to Europe, European buyers typically depend on the United States to compensate for any supply shortages in Europe, as highlighted by CMA analysts.
The TotalEnergies Normandy platform is comprised of the Gonfreville refinery with a capacity of 247,000 b/d and a petrochemical plant producing 200,000 b/d.
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