LyondellBasell Industries NV has started construction of a grassroots high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plant at its petrochemical complex in La Porte, Tex. (OGJ Online, July 29, 2016).
Scheduled for startup in 2019, the proposed 1.1 billion-lb/year HDPE plant will be the first ever to use LyondellBasell’s proprietary Hyperzone PE technology, a cascade-gas phase process based on the company’s existing Multizone circulating-reactor technology, LyondellBasell said.
Part of LyondellBasell’s $3-5 billion investment plans for in growth projects at the US Gulf Coast over the next 5 years, the new plant, once completed, will more than double the La Porte complex’s annual HDPE capacity to 2 billion lb/yr (OGJ Online, Sept. 9, 2016).
The company said it selected its La Porte site for the new plant because of the complex’s proximity both to price-advantaged feedstock from increased North American shale production and transportation infrastructure needed to ship product to global markets.
A final investment decision on development of a separate project to build the world’s largest propylene oxide (PO) and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) plant at LyondellBasell’s Channelview complex is scheduled for some time during this year’s second half, the company said.
If completed, the PO-TBA plant would produce about 1 billion lb/year of PO and 29,000 b/d of oxyfuels beginning in 2020 (OGJ Online, June 3, 2016).
Earlier this year, LyondellBasell completed a project to expand ethylene capacity by 800 million-lb/year to 2.5 billion lb/year at its complex in Corpus Christi, Tex. (OGJ Online, Jan. 19, 2017).
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
