The largest petrochemical plant in Ukraine – Karpatneftekhim (Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk region) announced force majeure for the supply of ethylene and propylene from the olefin complex in Kalush because of a fire that caused production to stop, market sources told ICIS.

In particular, the fire started at the manufacturer’s polyolefin production on January 12 of the current year at 21:08 and was extinguished at 10:44 the next day.

The production of “Polyolefin” includes a pyrolysis shop, compression and pyrogas separation; hydrocarbon production shop; hydrocarbon spill shop.

Also, because of the fire, the company closed the production of low-pressure polyethylene (HDPE), although the release of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) continues.

According to sources, it is not yet known how long production will be idle, but it is assumed that the shutdown will take from one to five months.

The company was not available for comment.

Earlier it was noted that Karpatneftekhim June 9, 2017 resumed work after five years of inactivity. In addition, last year the company carried out a scheduled preventive maintenance of the production facilities for low-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which started on November 5th and was quite long. By December 7, Karpatneftekhim resumed the production of PVC, and the start of the HDP operating time began on December 10th.

Karpatneftekhim is one of the largest enterprises of the petrochemical complex of Ukraine. Currently, the enterprise is capable of producing 300 thousand tons of polyvinyl chloride annually, 200 thousand tons of caustic soda, about 180 thousand tons of chlorine, as well as 250 thousand tons of ethylene and 100 thousand tons of polyethylene.