An accidental shutdown at it's ethylene plan in Corunna, Ont., will cost Nova Chemicals Corp. an estimated US$11 mln in lost income. The Corunna facility produces over 1.6 million tpa of basic petrochemicals, and provides upto 40% of Canada's primary petrochemical supplies.
The facility has suffered minor damage in the shutdown, when on Monday, a contract worker accidently flipped a switch meant to shut down the massive facility in case of an emergency. The bright side of the situation was there was no safety hazard at the plant. Abruptly shutting down of the plant will cost the company in terms of lost profits due to lost production and repair costs in getting the facility up and running again over the next two weeks.
Nova expects the plant will be back up to full production within two weeks and has declared "force majeure" on propylene and other pipeline-delivered co-products, until the plant returns to normal operating rates and inventory levels. Force majeure is declared when a company can't fulfill its contracts due to circumstances beyond its control.
Earlier this year, Nova Chemicals suffered a US$70 mln after-tax loss when its Corunna plant was shut down for several months because of equipment problems.
22-Jun-06 
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