A gas leak on 23 September 2026 at Shanghai BASF Polyurethane Co. (SBPC) in Pudong stopped production at a site with about 220,000 tonnes a year of TDI and about 300,000 tonnes a year of MDI capacity. According to Caixin, the leak came from failed equipment at a wastewater treatment unit, released nitrogen oxides and was contained within about two hours. East China spot TDI rose to 18,050 yuan per tonne by 24 September.
Caixin puts the plant at about 10% of China's TDI capacity and about 4% of its MDI capacity. East China spot TDI rose 2.35% to 17,450 yuan per tonne on 23 September and a further 3.44% to 18,050 yuan on 24 September, while polymeric MDI rose 1.4% to 17,800 yuan per tonne.
ChemAnalyst reported that production would stop for about 15 days and that the outage overlaps with two planned turnarounds of roughly 45 days each, at Wanhua Chemical's MDI unit in Yantai and at Tosoh in Japan, during China's traditional peak demand season in September and October.
Accidental and planned outages arriving at the same time are the kind of supply squeeze that can feed through to prices for buyers further down the chain. Polyurethane system houses that rely on Asian isocyanates will be watching how quickly SBPC restarts.