Dow Chemical Argentina likley to be offline for entire Q3

26-Jul-19

On June 28, Dow Chemical's Bahia Blanca complex suffered an explosion in a cracker No. 2. Since then, operations have been stopped in the plant.

Dow Chemical's Bahia Blanca petrochemical complex in Argentina will likely remain offline for the entire third quarter, the company has reported as per SPGlobal Platts. Late in the second quarter, there was a significant countrywide power outage in Argentina, which also spread to neighboring countries. The power outage abruptly shut down the ethylene operations.
Teams on the ground are assessing the damage and beginning repairs. The company estimates that the facility will be offline for at least the entire third quarter and is expected to impact company results by approximately US$100 mln.

According to sources and S&P Global Platts data, Dow Chemical Bahia Blanca complex has two crackers - cracker 1 with installed capacity of 275,000 mt/year and cracker 2 with installed capacity of 455,000 mt/year. The complex has six production plants: two for ethylene and four focused in polyethylene (HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE and EPE). The company does not disclose specific ethylene and polyethylene production data.