European ethylene spot prices jumped Thursday following a fire earlier in the week at Shell's Moerdijk site in the Netherlands, sources said Friday, adding that they expect olefin supply from the steam cracker at the site to be affected.
A spot trade was heard on the Aethylen-Rohrleitungs-Gesellschaft (ARG) ethylene pipeline in Northwest Europe at Eur1,065/mt FCA late Thursday, compared with the last trade on the line heard at Eur950/mt Wednesday.
The styrene monomer/propylene oxide facility at Moerdijk was hit by a fire late Tuesday. The plant is a 50:50 joint venture between Shell and BASF. Shell also operates a 900,000 mt/year steam cracker at the site.
"We are currently assessing the impact of the incident," an olefin source at Shell said Friday. "We will advise customers at an individual basis."
He declined to comment on whether force majeure has been declared on olefins from the site.
"Prompt ethylene is tight. We don't have any tonnes to sell. Maybe in H2 June we will have spot volumes available," another producer said.
He added that structurally he expects ethylene to remain balanced to long.
"But this incident shows us that ethylene in Europe can get tight on production issues," the producer said.
