Six months after its restart, the Geismar, LA, olefins plant is up to 87% of its full expanded production rate, Williams Partners LP said late Thursday.

The ethylene production rate as of Wednesday was at 4.63 million pounds/day. The plant also is maximizing propylene production.

“With the repairs made after a local electrical outage, an expansion plant transformer re-installed and the expansion equipment now online, the plant continues to make progress each day toward its full expanded production rate,” the partnership said.

The natural gas liquids (NGL) facility was shuttered two years ago following a fatal explosion and fire (see Daily GPI, June 14, 2013). Following the repairs and an expansion, the plant’s restart was delayed a couple of times before restarting early this year (see Daily GPI, Dec. 31, 2014).

“Our primary objective this year is to once again be a reliable supplier of olefins to our customers and we are very pleased to be progressing toward expanded production at the plant,” said Senior Vice President John Dearborn, who oversees NGL & Petchem Services.

“We continue our emphasis on operational discipline and maintaining the excellent safety performance demonstrated by our Geismar team throughout this expansion process.”

The expanded ethylene production capacity now is 1.95 billion pounds/year. The partnership holds most of the capacity, 1.7 billion pounds/year.