By Liz White, UT staffMidland, Michigan-Dow is to raise prices in the US and Canada for all grades of triethylene glycol by $.06 per pound and for all grades of tetraethylene glycol by $.03 per pound, from 22 Sept."Overall tight supply for these products and rapidly escalating prices for raw materials and energy has made this increase necessary" said John Smith, commercial manager for ethylene oxide and higher glycols at Dow, in a company statement. "These factors have been worsened by the impact of hurricane Katrina," Smith added. Separately Dow has updated users on the force majeure situation resulting from the hurricane for monopropylene glycol (MPG) and dipropylene glycol (DPG)-both produced at its plant in Plaquemine, Louisiana.Equipment at the site was not damaged, and has been returned to operation. "Barring unforeseen circumstances, the plant is expected to return to normal production levels over the next several days," said Antulio Borneo, commercial director, Dow Oxides & Glycols, in a company statement. Until further notice, Dow is going to allocate available MPG and DPG at 90 percent of customers' monthly average volume of the last twelve months. Products included in this allocation are: propylene glycol industrial and USP/EP grades, dipropylene glycol grades, but not tripropylene glycol. Difficulties in transport and logistics on the Gulf Coast and Southeastern US as a result of the hurricane are likely to disrupt supply in the coming months, said Borneo. "Based on current assessments, this situation could last through the end of October," he added. Dow itself has total global production capacity of 1950 kilotonnes per annum of ethylene oxide (EO) and 1769 kt of ethylene glycol (EG, while together with joint venture these figures rise to more than 3700 ktpa of EO and 3950 ktpa of EG per annum-"the world's largest supply of EO and EG," Dow claims. Dow's global capacity for propylene glycol is more than 454 ktpa and for propylene oxide is 1814 ktpa. "
