Chevron Phillips Chemical Thursday began restarting a second polyethylene unit at its Cedar Bayou facility in Baytown, Texas, according to a filing with state regulators.
CP Chem last week restarted the first unit at Cedar Bayou, which had been offline since Hurricane Harvey made landfall along the Gulf Coast in late August.
Thursday's startup of Polyethylene Unit 1796 could run through November 23, according to a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Market sources had previously indicated production should resume in early November at Cedar Bayou, which also houses a steam cracker with an annual capacity of 835,000 mt of ethylene. The complex has a total of three polyethylene lines with a combined annual capacity of 791,000 mt.
During the company's third-quarter earnings call in late October, Phillips 66 CEO Greg Garland said the startup of operations was underway, with most units likely to be online by the end of November. Phillips 66 is a partner with Chevron Corp. on the chemical joint venture.
Previously, CP Chem restarted the 1-Hexene Unit at the site, which produces co-monomers used in polyethylene production. An October 23 filing with the TCEQ showed it had begun restarting boilers A, B and C, which market sources have said would be needed for the polymer production.
