US spot butadiene remained assessed at a nine-month high of 41.5 cents/lb ($915/mt) CIF US Gulf Coast Friday, stable week on week on tight supply, sources said.
The assessment level was at its highest since September 4, when it was at 42 cents/lb, according to S&P Global Platts data.
US spot supply has been tight following an unplanned outage late May at Shell Chemicals' Norco, Louisiana, butadiene extraction unit, sources said.
Shell Chemicals declared force majeure on butadiene out of the Norco petrochemicals facility following the outage, sources said in early June. The butadiene extraction unit was expected to be down for several weeks, possibly into early July, sources said.
Shell Chemicals spokesman Ray Fisher said in an email that maintenance has started at "a unit on the chemicals side" of its Norco complex, but declined to comment about whether the unit went down unplanned and whether a force majeure was issued. "For reasons of commercial confidentiality, we do not provide details about the operational status of individual units or information on supply," he said.
Norco has an estimated production capacity of 585 million lbs/year of butadiene.
Despite the tight supply, spot pricing was flat week on week on weak demand for spot material, sources said.
Large buyers were good on material, with smaller buyers being the only ones inquiring about product, sources said.
US spot butadiene pricing has risen 16.5 cents since a February 19 assessment at 25 cents/lb CIF USG, according to Platts data.
