Houston (Platts)--10Nov2010/520 pm EST/2220 GMT

      
US' Williams Olefins has declared force majeure out of its olefins plant
at Geismar, Louisiana, several sources told Platts Wednesday.

     The company took its steam cracker at Geismar down on November 4 for a
planned 6-10 day maintenance. 

     But the plant is now expected to be down longer than initially planned,
resulting in the force majeure declaration, sources said. 

     Williams is now targeting a second half of November restart of the 1.2
billion lbs/year unit.

     The outage will likely further constrain an already tight US ethylene
market. In addition to the Williams outage, supply has been choked by a force
majeure declaration by Ineos last week. 

     Ineos was forced to make the declaration after its Chocolate Bayou, Texas
plant was shutdown due to a possible lightning strike. 

     Further supply constraints came via outages at Dow, Sasol, and Eastman.

     Meanwhile, spot activity saw increased liquidity with November trading
four times Tuesday, twice at 51.50 cents/lb MtB Wms and twice at 53 cents/lb
MtB Wms. Additionally a November trade at 53.50 cents/lb MtB Equ was heard
done. 

     Mont Belviue Williams (MtB Wms) and Equistar (MtB Equ) are ethylene
delivery points in the US.

     Wednesday morning, November offers were seen at 56 cents/lb MtB Equ and
at 54 cents/lb MtB Wms while December was offered at 55 cents/lb MtB Equ and
54 cents/lb MtB Wms. Buyers though were notably absent and no corresponding
bids were seen and no confirmed trades reported at time of publication.

		--Kevin Allen, kevin_allen@platts.com

Similar stories appear in Polymerscan. 
See more information at http://www.platts.com/Products/polymerscan