Following an explosion and fire that occurred last Saturday at Thailand’s Bangkok Synthetics (BST) complex at Rayong that killed 12 people and sent hundreds to the hospital with injuries, the company announced today that it has shut down all of its operations at the site.

BST Elastomers yesterday declared force majeure on butadiene rubber and styrene-butadiene-rubber and told customers that there would likely not be any shipments of product for a month.  The shutdown is likely to create auto industry product shortages in the region.

A source for the company was quoted in local newspapers as saying, “We cease all activity.  We stopped all supply activity.  We informed suppliers and customers we had to stop.”

The explosion and fire occurred when workers were cleaning a production unit with toluene, although thus far there has been no announcement as to the specific cause of the accident.