Weak demand for butadiene has continued to plague Texas Petrochemicals, causing it to temporarily idle various plants, the company said it may make further cost cuts. "The severe decline in general economic conditions has negatively impacted both supply and demand for our businesses, especially in the butadiene marketplace," said Russ Crockett, senior vice president - commercial. "Because of the flexibility in our asset portfolio, we have been working to optimise our physical assets and to reduce our operating costs by temporarily idling various production units at both our Houston and Port Neches [Texas] facilities while continuing to meet the needs of our customers and suppliers,” Crockett said in a press statement. The Houston-based producer said it has also released much of its contractor workforce to cut costs. “At this point, although we have seen some improvement in demand across our business from last month, demand for butadiene has not significantly improved over December's levels,” Crockett said. “As a result, we will continue to take aggressive steps to reduce working capital, manage costs, and maintain liquidity until conditions improve," he said.