OREANDA-NEWS. Chevron Phillips Chemical continued to restart units at its Cedar Bayou, Texas, that were put offline by flooding, but the company said the site's ethylene cracker never went down.

The company reported to the Texas Commission Environmental Quality (TCEQ) today that the restart process for the affected units at the plant could continue through 12 November, and will result in emissions of ethylene, benzene, propylene, propane, toluene, xylenes and other materials.

A filing with TCEQ yesterday indicated the cracker was shut down along with all other units following heavy weekend rains. The company said today the cracker was still running.

US spot benzene rose sharply following the incident, trading up to 13?/USG higher yesterday, pushing the assessment up to 220.67?/USG.

The cracker on the site can produce up to 1.7bn lb/yr (771,000 t/yr) of ethylene that supplies a portion of the feedstock for normal alpha olefins production and polyethylene production at the same location.