Singapore's Ellba Eastern, a joint venture between Shell and BASF, and Shell Singapore have ended their force majeure on styrene monomer supplies with effect from October 31, a spokeswoman for Shell said late Thursday.
Shell's customers have confirmed that the company had ended its force majeure on SM supplies to them recently.
"We can confirm that Ellba has informed its shareholders of the end of the force majeure. For Shell, we can confirm that we have informed our customers of the end of the force majeure event in relation to majority of the products and are now able to resume normal supply of the products to them under the corresponding contracts. For a small number of contracts which continue to be affected by the FM event, we continue to be in discussions with our customers to address their supply needs and minimize any potential impact to them," the spokeswoman said in an email to Platts.
Shell is dependent on SM supplies from Ellba to supply to its customers in Asia, she added, but did not give details on volumes.
A large buyer of SM in Southeast Asia confirmed Friday that Ellba had lifted its force majeure on supplies to them earlier this week, while a contract customer in India confirmed that Shell had ended its force majeure on supplies to them early this week.
Ellba, which operates a 550,000 mt/year SM plant at Jurong Island, declared force majeure September 15. The reason for the force majeure remains unknown, but the plant has had problems throughout this year, which led it to declare force majeure on supplies three times since March.
Separately, Shell Chemicals Seraya operates a 350,000 mt/year SM plant also at Jurong Island. Traders said the plant was able to keep operating even as a fire shut Shell's 500,000 mt/year Pulau Bukom refinery late September. After the refinery fire, Shell declared force majeure on SM supplies to some customers on September 30.
