December 17, 2025 14:23

Restructuring continues in the petrochemical industry, although this time it does not concern “old Europe” but North America.

Westlake has announced plans to rationalize its chlorovinyl and styrene operations through the closure of production units in Mississippi (Aberdeen) and Louisiana (Lake Charles), with the most significant impact at the latter site.

The plan includes the permanent shutdown of the suspension PVC plant with a capacity of 450,000 tonnes per year at Aberdeen, as well as the vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) unit with a capacity of 410,000 t/y and the chlor-alkali facilities at Lake Charles, producing 375,000 t/y of chlorine and 410,000 t/y of caustic soda.
At the same Louisiana complex, Westlake also intends to shut down the styrene unit with a capacity of 260,000 t/y.

The closures of the facilities are expected to result in a workforce reduction of approximately 295 employees.
The company expects it will incur total pretax costs of approximately $415 million related to the closures of the facilities, consisting of noncash accelerated depreciation, amortization and asset write-off charges of approximately $357 million, employee severance and separation costs of approximately $25 million, and other plant shutdown costs of approximately $33 million.

“Given the persistent, challenging market conditions facing the global commodities chemicals industry, as part of our evaluation of business operations, we have made the difficult decision to cease operation of three units within our North American Chlorovinyls business and cease operations of our styrene manufacturing unit, located in Lake Charles, Louisiana,” said Jean-Marc Gilson, president and chief executive officer of Westlake. “We will continue to supply our chlorovinyl customers with products produced at our other North American Chlorovinyls manufacturing facilities.”

Following the closures, Westlake expects to retain global annual capacity of approximately 2.5 million tonnes of suspension PVC, of which 2.22 million tonnes are in North America. The group will also have around 3.46 million t/y of VCM capacity globally (2.74 million t/y in North America), 3 million t/y of chlorine (2.45 million t/y in North America), and 3.41 million t/y of caustic soda (2.77 million t/y in North America).

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