More to lose jobs as Huntsman to shutter petrochemical plant in Melbourne

09-Sep-09

More workers will lose jobs as Huntsman plans to shutter its petrochemical plant in Melbourne in early 2010 once demolition and decontamination is completed. When the shutdown plan was announced in December 2008 at the West Footscray plant, about 200 jobs were lost. Another 125 full-time contractors are also expected to lose their jobs at the site. Cheaper polystyrene imports coupled with 6 mln tons of excess capacity have led to the shutdown. Huntsman’s styrenics operations had suffered an adjusted loss of almost $US24 million in 2008.