Ingleside Ethylene LLC, a 50-50 joint venture of Occidental Chemical Corp. (OxyChem) and Mexichem SAB de CV (Mexichem), has let a contract to CB&I, Houston, to provide engineering, procurement, and construction for an ethylene storage complex in Markham, Tex. The complex will be built as part of the JV’s ethylene cracker project now under way at nearby Ingleside, Tex. (OGJ Online, Dec. 17, 2014).
CB&I’s scope of work under the EPC contract will consist of surface installations and includes compression, dehydration, metering, and associated pipe fabrication at the salt cavern storage site, the service provider said.
CB&I valued the contract at about $115 million.
This latest contract follows OxyChem’s previous letting of a $1-billion EPC contract to CB&I for the cracker project, including associated utilities and offsites (OGJ Online, Dec. 2, 2013).
First announced in November 2013 (OGJ Online, Nov. 1, 2013), the 1.2 billion-lb/year ethane cracker will provide OxyChem with an ongoing source of ethylene for manufacturing vinyl chloride monomer, which Mexichem will use to produced polyvinyl chloride resin and PVC piping systems.
The cracker, which will process ethane feedstocks from growing US shale gas supplies, received final greenhouse gas prevention of significant deterioration construction permits from the US Environmental Protection Agency last year (OGJ Online, May 29, 2014).
CB&I said it also will provide licensing for ethylene technology to be used at the project, including five short-residence-time cracking heaters.
Additionally, the project will use cracking furnaces equipped with selective catalytic reduction technology to control emissions of nitrogen oxides, according to EPA.
At a total cost of about $1.5 billion, the ethylene project, which began construction in late 2014, is scheduled for start-up in 2017.
