LAO Market Hit by Simultaneous Disruptions Across US, Qatar, and Russia

The global LAO market is facing tighter supply conditions due to production disruptions in the United States, Qatar, and Russia. Chevron Phillips Chemical declared force majeure at its Texas facility after a technical issue halted production from July through August, resulting in an approximately 15-day interruption. The facility has a total capacity of 240,000 tonnes per month, with 150,000 tonnes per month listed as active capacity. This outage removed a significant portion of domestic LAO availability during August and limited the volume of LAO that US buyers could source from this producer.

The timing of these disruptions coincides with logistical uncertainty linked to ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Rather than a single isolated outage, the simultaneous disruption of multiple supply sources is reducing flexibility across regional markets and increasing the importance of inventories, alternative suppliers, and advance procurement.