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Westlake Chemical restarts VCM plant in Louisiana following March fire

Westlake Chemical said Wednesday that the vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) unit at its complex in Geismar, Louisiana, has been safely repaired and restarted.

The unit had been taken offline after it was damaged by a fire in late March.

With the restart of this unit, the overall site is now fully operational, according to the company.

Westlake said it continues to cooperate with governmental authorities, including OSHA, EPA, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, and law enforcement, regarding the investigation into the factors contributing to the fire.

The company added that it is working with customers and suppliers to mitigate the impact of the outage and to meet their needs as production resumes.

The unit makes about 550 million pounds/year of VCM, according to media reports.

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