US olefins and polymers maker Chevron Phillips Chemical is moving ahead with plans to construct two polyethylene plants with a combined capacity of 1 million metric tons/year at a site to be determined in Texas, the company announced Wednesday.
The PE plants are part of a project that also includes the construction of a 1.5 million mt/year-capacity ethane-fed cracker at CP Chem's Cedar Bayou petrochemical complex in Baytown, Texas. CP Chem, which is based in The Woodlands, Texas, announced plans for the world-scale cracker on Wednesday.
The plants, each with a capacity of 500,000 mt/year, will be built at either at the Cedar Bayou facility or a site nearby the Chevron Phillips Chemical Sweeny facility in Old Ocean, Texas.
A final site selection decision for these units is anticipated during the first quarter of 2012.
"It is our opinion that this project offers unique advantages, including co-location of the cracker with our Cedar Bayou facility and other ancillary assets such as our broad feedstock and ethylene pipeline and storage cavern networks, proximity to the expanding natural gas liquids hub in Mont Belvieu (Texas) and utilization of proprietary technology to meet the growing demand of our customers," CP Chem president and CEO Peter Cella said.
CP Chem first made public plans to build a world-scale cracker in the US Gulf Coast region in March.
The company is one of several to announce cracker and/or derivative projects in the region as the US petrochemical industry aims to tap into the projected long-term feedstock advantage provided by shale gas in North America.
Cella said Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality air permit applications for the new cracker will be filed this week. He also indicated that the project is on track for final approvals in 2013.
