15 October 2010 09:10 [Source: ICIS news]
LONDON (ICIS)--MSK’s acetic acid unit in Kikinda, Serbia, will be out of production for three months due to technical issues, a company source said on Friday.
The unit went down on 4 October and the maintenance would last “at least three months”, the source said.
The company discovered mid-September that the 100,000 tonne/year unit would have to shut down unexpectedly due to technical issues.
Spot prices for acetic acid were currently stable, around €420-460/tonne ($592-648/tonne) free delivered (FD) northwest Europe (NWE), according to ICIS.
However, some sellers said prices could firm in the fourth quarter, citing the large two-month outage that was also scheduled at one of BP’s units in ?xml:namespace>
The combined capacity at the BP site is 510,000 tonnes/year and it has been a long-term plan to shut down one of the lines for maintenance. During the outage all contractual commitments would be fulfilled to customers.
Buyers showed resistance to proposed price increases saying that all demand was easily covered and most were not concerned at the aforementioned outages, especially given that they were taking place at the end of the year, a time when traditionally demand tails off.
($1 = €0.71)