Global Epoxy Giant Olin Announces Temporary Shutdown Of 265,000 Tonnes Epoxy Resin Unit

On 14 March 2022, Olin Corporation announced that it will temporarily scale back production of integrated epoxy resins at its plant in Stade, Germany.

During the first quarter of 2022, Olin's demand for epoxy resins in Europe was lower than expected, exacerbated by the uncertainty following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Olin is reluctant to sell incremental product to the lower end of the market and it is impractical to operate epoxy resin facilities at less than 50% start-up. Due to these factors, record gas and electricity costs in Europe and facility maintenance, Olin decided to suspend production of Stade epoxy resins.

Olin, the world's second largest supplier of epoxy resins, has a production capacity of 610,000 tonnes, second only to Guido Chemical in South Korea with 630,000 tonnes, of which 265,000 tonnes of epoxy resin capacity is laid out at Stade in Germany.

Olin expects the epoxy resins business to report a decrease of approximately US$35 to US$40 million in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the fourth quarter of 2021 on a sequential basis.

We continue to expect total chemical results in the first quarter of 2022 to be similar to the fourth quarter of 2021 levels due to Olin's unique model of real-time adaptation of global prioritisation of system values.