After prolonged disruptions due to adverse weather conditions in the US, the American multinational oil and gas giant, ExxonMobil Chemical Co. (EMCC) has announced that operations at all its production units in the US Gulf Coast (USGC) have restored to normalcy.

As stated by the company officials, since the industry continues to recover from the raw material shortage and suppressed inventory levels, it may no doubt hamper the short-term availability of certain products and their timely delivery. The prices of certain polyethylene (PE) products have been raised significantly by several US producers in response to the current trends.

EMCC has announced positive revision in the prices of various polyethylene resins. According to latest release, High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) prices have been increased by about USD 198 per MT, whereas prices of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) prices have been revised by USD 154 per MT. The revised prices will be applicable from April 1^st, 2021 and will be in addition to the last price increment of USD 154 per MT which was implemented on 1^st March.

This increase was announced after several PE producers like Dow, Formosa Plastics, Equistar chemicals raised their prices of polymer resins in the last few weeks underlining market tightness and robust demand as the key factors pushing up the regional offers.

ExxonMobil holds three PE units in Mont Belvieu, Texas, having a combined capacity of 880, 000 KT per annum. In addition, the company holds production units in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Beaumont and Mont Belvieu. EMCC also restarted its largest crude distillation unit (CDU) at the 560,500 barrel-per-day (bpd) Baytown, Texas, refinery, in the first week of March as per the market sources.

As per ChemAnalyst, “ExxonMobil is among many other petrochemical manufacturers of the region who had to shut plant operations due to freezing temperatures. Around 80-85% of the US PE capacity remained affected by the storms. Dented by the demand-supply imbalance, both export and domestic prices of the US polyethylene are tracing multi-year highs in March. Assessments are likely to sustain the uptrend throughout March and April.”