| 24 July 2009 Force Majeure Declaration - Update 1 As announced on 16 July 2009, INEOS ChlorVinyls is currently in Force Majeure with respect to supplies of VCM and S-PVC from several of our production plants across Europe. By way of context, on the evening of 15 July a severe thunderstorm caused a major power failure at our Rafnes Site in Norway. This was significant enough to cause our VCM plant to shut down, and has resulted in major problems restarting vital process equipment. Due to the power failure and unexpected operating conditions that resulted we have had to take our VCM plant fully offline to remove process contaminants from the system. During this work we have also discovered damage to the process equipment itself that must be repaired before production can resume. We are using every resource available to us in order to rectify the situation. We currently estimate that we can attempt the first restarts of the VCM plant week commencing 3 August 2009. Restarting the plant following an extended outage is a complex matter and may take some time to ensure that it is completed safely and that production is stable once the plant is operational. We are hoping to resume normal VCM production as early as possible in advance of the planned maintenance shutdown in September. Elsewhere, our production difficulties at Schkopau Site, Germany, are still not fully resolved, and we will continue to have output restrictions on all grades of S-PVC until the planned maintenance shutdown in August. Once we are in a position to lift the Force Majeure, we will issue a further communication. ENDS For further information please contact: Geir Tuft |
