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ENERGY
The financial impact is unlikely to be very large, but the electrical blackout of Aug. 14 threw a monkey wrench into chemicals operations in the U.S. Northeast and Midwest and eastern Canada. Just about all have recovered or nearly recovered by now with no reported environmental incidents. According to an early assessment by Merrill Lynch analyst Donald D. Carson: "Chemical companies serving auto producers and other manufacturers in the Northeast likely lost a day or two of sales. But third-quarter results will largely be determined by the strength of September demand." The blackout, for example, shut down a large BASF polymers unit in Wyandotte, Mich. Outages also clobbered eight DuPont facilities, five of which were in the Canadian province of Ontario. Merck's Rahway, N.J., operations were also interrupted when the lights went out. Dow said its industrial biotechnology facility in Stony Brook, N.Y., suffered a power outage and its 147-acre chemicals and plastics operations in Sarnia, Ontario, suffered steam outages. Bayer's Sarnia rubber operations closed down. Nova Chemicals had to shut down five plants in the U.S. and Canada. Insight into how one operator handled the power outage came from Olin in Niagara Falls, N.Y. The firm's chlor-alkali membrane unit experienced a "power blip" at 4:10 PM on Aug. 14, says Plant Manager Thomas Tirabassi. Most operations at the site immediately began an orderly shutdown with battery backup power standing by. "We were ready to ramp up production again at 6 PM." But nitrogen supplier Praxair warned that its operations were unsteady, and power authorities asked Olin to stay off-line until the power grid was more stable. Olin voluntarily closed down the unit by 7:30 PM but was able to restart it two days later. |
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Chemical & Engineering News |
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