This year’s rain is creating problems for many cotton producers in the Texas Panhandle. The weather this year has brought more rain and when there’s too much rain in consecutive days it can damage cotton crops.
“Everything that can go wrong with too much rain has gone wrong,” said Jerrell Key, General Manager of Adobe Walls Gin LP.
DowDuPont Materials Science, the business division of DowDuPont plans to startup of its new integrated world-scale ethylene production facility and its new ELITE™ enhanced polyethylene production facility, both in Freeport, Texas. Both units will continue to ramp up through the third quarter and are expected to reach full rates in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Heavy rains have hit Texas, the largest cotton-growing state in the U.S. Most of the cotton is grown in West Texas, which is recovering from a four-year drought. Many areas haven’t seen more than two days in a row without rain this month, which has made it difficult to plant crops. If crop yields in Texas are lower or if the harvest is delayed and the maturing crop gets too wet from seasonal rains, it could create a temporary shortage of quality fiber.
The American multinational chemical company based in Houston, Texas, LyondellBasell, plans to introduce three major projects. The company tries to multiply ethylene capacity at the U.S. Gulf coast through these growth projects.
The company’s first project is the methanol plant at Channelview, Texas which was placed into service in fourth-quarter 2013 to take advantage of low-cost natural gas from shale formations. The unit had been out of service since 2004 due to the rising cost of natural gas, the key feedstock for methanol production, the company said.
