As the recession digs deeper into Europe, the closure of Wilton, UK's most important shared chemical sites has rung the bells for other sites across Europe as per ICIS. Wilton has access to the sea via the river Tees, and is also connected to the ethylene pipeline running to Grangemouth/Mossmorran in Scotland and across the Pennine hills to the west coast Runcorn/Stanlow complex. In July, Spanish group La Seda de Barcelona announced the shutdown of its 500,000 tpa purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant. Earlier, US-based producer Dow Chemical planned to close its 320,000 tpa ethylene oxide (EO) and 275,000 tpa ethylene glycol (EG) facility. The permanent closure at Wilton is expected to result in a cascading effect feedstock supplies to other players on the site gets affected. At the top of the chain is Saudi Arabia-based producer SABIC, which owns an 865, 000 tpa cracker at the site. SABIC’s new 400,000 tpa low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant is scheduled to come onstream this month and will absorb some of the cracker's ethylene capacity. But SABIC will be saddled with a about half of the ethylene output at the site rendered surplus by the Wilton closure.
Capacity Closed/threatened at Wilton (ICIS)
| Petroplus refinery | Refinery products | Threatened with closure or conversion to storage |
| Dow Chemical | Ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol | Closed by January 2010 |
| SABIC | Aromatics | End 2008 |
| Artenius | PTA | Closure announced |
| INVISTA | Adipic acid | end of 2009 |
13-Aug-09 
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