HOUSTON, Nov. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Kraton Corporation (NYSE: KRA), a leading global producer of styrenic block copolymers, specialty polymers and high-value performance products derived from pine wood pulping co-products, today provided an update on the operational status of its Panama City, Florida, plant.

“Our Panama City team has done a remarkable job, working tirelessly despite significant personal challenges, to restore operations following the outage caused by Hurricane Michael. I would personally like to thank all of our employees for their efforts, and I want to also thank our contractors, vendors, insurance partners and the local community in Panama City for their rapid response and strong support over these past few weeks,” said Kevin M. Fogarty, Kraton’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Based upon the progress we have made to date, we currently expect the Crude Tall Oil refinery to resume operations at full capacity by the end of November, at which time we would begin orderly ramp up to pre-hurricane supply rates on a product line basis. In addition, we currently expect that our Crude Sulfate Turpentine refinery should be operating at approximately 60% of capacity by the end of December, with a target of full operational capacity by the middle of the first quarter of 2019, during which time we expect the CST refinery will also ramp up to pre-hurricane supply rates,” Fogarty said. “We will continue our efforts to minimize the impact of the Panama City outage on our customers, and we thank them for their patience and understanding as we work to resume full operations in Panama City,” added Fogarty.

At this time Kraton does not have a monetary estimate of damages resulting from Hurricane Michael, but it anticipates that insurance proceeds will cover the costs to repair the Panama City manufacturing assets, provide reimbursement for any damage to inventory and pay for any lost profits, subject to insurance policy deductibles, which the company currently expects will not exceed $14 million in total.