With the exception of Sid Richardson’s Addis, LA plant, all of the carbon black plants shut down in the Gulf Coast due to Hurricane Gustav restarted earlier this week. This includes Cabot Franklin and Ville Platte, Columbian North Bend, and Evonik Degussa Ivanhoe.
Restoration of electric power to Sid’s Addis plant has taken longer than expected due to extensive damage to electrical lines in and around Baton Rouge. The plant is ready to go and just requires electric power to run the process air blowers. As of Thursday morning, the latest estimate from Entergy was that power would be restored on Friday, September 12. As previously reported here, Sid is shipping from the plant’s existing inventory and has been able to meet its contracts from its other two US plants.
As for Hurricane Ike, this storm is strengthening and is projected to make landfall near Houston/Galveston on early Saturday as a Category 3 storm or above. Evonik Degussa’s carbon black plant in Orange, Texas is in the storm’s expected path, so will shut down. Evonik’s plant in Aransas Pass, Texas (near Corpus Christi) is just south of the storm’s expected cone. I am awaiting an update on the storm plans for both of these plants. Valero has indicated that it expects its two refineries in Corpus Christi to continue to operate normally.