NOVA Chemicals' Corunna facility will shut down for nearly three months for a planned maintenance turnaround as part of the site's expansion and the start-up of a new polyethylene facility later this year.
The outage is expected to take place from Tuesday, April 19 until early July.
The turnaround will allow the company to complete preventative maintenance and improvement work, as well as tie-ins for the Corunna cracker expansion project.
"It's exciting to get to this point in time, towards the end of the process," said Vice President of Manufacturing East Rob Thompson. "There has been a lot of time and effort on behalf of our community and our skilled workforce in Sarnia-Lambton that have gotten us to this point where we can actually see the infield progress, we're nearing that final stage."
During the first few days of the outage, residents in the area should expect elevated flaring and increased noise. There may also be increased traffic, especially between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., and 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Updates regarding the outage will be shared through the My Community Notification Network (MyCNN).
Turnaround at the Corunna site is also "a key enabling event" for the successful start-up of NOVA's new facility on Rokeby Line.
Thompson said construction of the new plant has "progressed well" despite challenges presented during the COVID-19 pandemic, which he said is "a testament to the workforce."
"Construction is progressing well at the Rokeby facility, we're in our homestretch," he said. "The plan is for start-up before the end of 2022, and we're just completing some of the finished electrical work and instrumentation, as well as commissioning the facility."
NOVA's construction projects are still expected to cost $2.5 billion.
Thompson said 150 incremental full-time positions were added as part of the commissioning team and the workforce associated with the Rokeby facility includes 1,500 skilled tradespeople.