{"id":25104,"date":"2017-09-01T11:49:34","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T16:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25104"},"modified":"2017-09-01T11:49:34","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T16:49:34","slug":"harvey-causing-unprecedented-disruptions-to-supplies-of-essential-chemicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25104","title":{"rendered":"Harvey Causing “Unprecedented” Disruptions To Supplies Of “Essential” Chemicals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harvey Causing “Unprecedented” Disruptions To Supplies Of “Essential” Chemicals<\/a><\/h3>\n
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The unprecedented destruction wrought by Hurricane Harvey will impact the US economy in ways may not be immediately apparent. Until recently, coverage of the storm’s impact has focused on property damage and the impact on the energy industry. But in a story published Friday, Bloomberg<\/a> explains the devastating impact the storm has had on Texas\u2019s chemicals industry, which is already causing supply-chain headaches for American manufacturers who’re struggling to source the chemicals required to produce plastics and other components used in everything from milk jugs to car parts. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Indeed, if Texas’s chemicals plants are closed for an extended period, production at a potentially huge number of American manufacturers to grind to a halt. <\/strong><\/p>\n

More than 60% of the US\u2019s production capacity for ethylene \u2013 one of the most important chemical building blocks for American manufacturers \u2013 has been taken offline by the storm, a development that could ripple across the US manufacturing industry.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTexas alone produces nearly three quarters of the country\u2019s supply of one of the most basic chemical building blocks. Ethylene is the foundation for making plastics essential to U.S. consumer and industrial goods, feeding into car parts used by Detroit and diapers sold by Wal-Mart Stores Inc.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With Harvey\u2019s floods shutting down almost all the state\u2019s plants, 61 percent of U.S. ethylene capacity has been closed, according to PetroChemWire.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ethylene, the gas given off by fruit as it ripens, occurs naturally, but it\u2019s also a crucial product of the $3.5 trillion global chemical industry, with factories pumping out 146 million tons last year. Processing plants turn the chemical into polyethylene, the world\u2019s most common plastic, which is used in garbage bags and food packaging. When transformed into ethylene glycol, it\u2019s the antifreeze that keeps engines and airplane wings from freezing in winter.<\/p>\n

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…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harvey Causing “Unprecedented” Disruptions To Supplies Of “Essential” Chemicals The unprecedented destruction wrought by Hurricane Harvey will impact the US economy in ways may not be immediately apparent. Until recently, coverage of the storm’s impact has focused on property damage and the impact on the energy industry. But in a story published Friday, Bloomberg explains […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[83,128,15820,3458,15724,2063,827,4318],"class_list":["post-25104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-bloomberg","tag-chemicals","tag-ethylene","tag-houston","tag-hurricane-harvey","tag-texas","tag-united-states","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25105,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25104\/revisions\/25105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}