The Fife cracker in Mossmorran / UK is currently offline. On Monday, 12 August 2019, ExxonMobil Chemical (Baytown, Texas / USA; www.exxonmobilchemical.com) shut down the plant due to mechanical failure of two boilers. Emergency flaring was required before shutting down operations. On 15 August, the company announced that the cracker was at a standstill. How long the outage will last is not known, but repairs should begin after investigations are carried out.

The cracker has had its controversies in the last several years due to frequent flaring. It is operated by ExxonMobil, but co-owned with Shell. According to Plasteurope.com’s Polyglobe database (www.polyglobe.net), the ethane gas-based plant has a capacity of 830,000 t/y of ethylene. The cracker has traditionally been supplied with gas from the North Sea, and today, at least some of it comes from Ineos’ large tank in Grangemouth for imported ethane gas from the US.

Mossmorran is connected to the Grangemouth-Wilton-Fawley UK ethylene pipelines. About 50% of ethylene output is processed at adjoining British petrochemical plants. The other half being transported via the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh to the port of Antwerp / Belgium.