Enterprise's new propane dehydrogenation unit has reached full capacity production in the first half of this year after several delays in production in 2017. The PDH unit is located in Mont Belvieu, Texas, with a designed capacity of 750,000 tons per year. In February and March of this year, the operating rate was only 60%, and it rose to 84% in April. By June, it had reached full capacity. The plant was delayed in production and the slow release of production capacity after commissioning, plus the Gulf of Mexico in the United States. Unplanned shutdowns of two other PDH units in the region led to tight domestic propylene supply and stimulated propylene prices to soar in early 2018.
In the first quarter of this year, Dow DuPont's PDH unit experienced several months of unplanned downtime, and Flint Hills Resources' PDH unit was unplanned for several days in January. However, the two units The problem has been solved and it worked well for most of the second quarter.
However, the decline in propylene production from refineries and crackers will continue to strain the supply of propylene in the US in the second half of this year. At the end of June, US propylene stocks fell to their lowest level in nearly two years.