PTTGC America has joined forces with South Korean engineering and construction company Daelim Industrial to launch a feasibility study and obtain funding for a petrochemical complex in southeastern Ohio, the company said on its website for the project.
PTTGC America, the US arm of Thailand's PTT Global Chemical, said in a statement posted last week that a final investment decision on whether to move forward was expected by the end of 2018.
The company already had pushed an FID to late 2017 from last summer to allow more time to evaluate engineering designs submitted by US engineering and construction firms Fluor and Bechtel as well as the economic feasibility of the project, which has been in development since 2015. The complex would include a 1 million mt/year cracker and derivative units.
The company's latest statement said that as PTTGC continues to solicit strategic partners, "there are multiple interests from international investors, including Daelim, to participate."
Daelim has completed petrochemical projects in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, for Saudi Kayan, an affiliate of SABIC, and Saudi Polymers, a joint venture of Saudi Arabia's National Petrochemical Company and Chevron Phillips Chemical.
Shell Chemical began construction on its new $6 billion petrochemical complex about 80 miles away in western Pennsylvania last year with a 1.6 million mt/year cracker and three polyethylene plants with a cumulative capacity of 1.6 million mt/year.
Shell's project will be the first fueled by the cheap US natural gas boom to come online in the US Northeast, home to the prolific Marcellus and Utica natural gas shale plays.
