LyondellBasell Industries has declared force majeure supply limits on polypropylene resin made at its plant in Lake Charles, La.
In a March 30 letter to customers, officials with LyondellBasell in Houston said that the firm "has experienced mechanical failure of a gearbox" in Lake Charles. They added that the equipment failure "was beyond our reasonable control" and will affect production of 32 grades of PP made at the site.
According to the letter, allocations will be calculated based on purchase history of those 32 grades from September 2021 to February 2022. A company spokesperson declined to provide additional details on the equipment failure.
The outage comes as higher feedstock costs have sent North American PP prices up an average of 10 cents per pound in March.
