LOS ANGELES, Dec 27, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY) announced today that OxyVinyls LP, an affiliate of Occidental Chemical Corporation (OxyChem), will idle its chlor-alkali manufacturing facility in Deer Park, Texas due to current market conditions. The facility, which has an annual production capacity of 410,000 tons of chlorine and 451,000 tons of its co-product caustic soda, will resume operation when warranted by market conditions. During the period of suspended operations, OxyChem will supply OxyVinyls with an equivalent volume of chlorine from other facilities and will continue to meet all customer requirements.
The Deer Park plant is part of the OxyVinyls Houston Operations site which includes six facilities in the cities of Deer Park, LaPorte and Pasadena. Operations at OxyVinyls' VCM, PVC and anhydrous caustic soda facilities at Deer Park will not be impacted by today's announcement.