Latest setback will squeeze Europe’s olefins market even tighter

The 800,000tpa Mossmorran ethylene cracker on the Fifeshire coast in Scotland is off stream at present, following a compressor fire on 10 November.

No one was hurt in the incident at the Shell and ExxonMobil-owned plant. It the latest setback to hit the tight olefins market in Europe, with Shell’s Moerdijk cracker also declaring force majeure recently.

Ethylene from Mossmorran is mainly consumed elsewhere and is largely transported from the site by ship to the Continent; the site is also linked by pipeline to Grangemouth.

Opened in 1985, the cracker draws gas feedstock from the North Sea. Despite plans to establish PE manufacture downstream at one time, this step was never carried out.