ExxonMobil outlines Baytown chemical plant expansion

ExxonMobil Corp. is planning a $2-billion investment to expand its Baytown, Tex., chemical plant.

Scheduled for startup in 2022, the expansion will include a performance polymer unit that will produce about 400,000 tonnes/year of Vistamaxx polymers, ExxonMobil said.

The project also will enable ExxonMobil to enter the linear alpha olefins market with a unit slated to produce about 350,000 tpy of linear alpha olefins.

The proposed Baytown expansion comes in addition to the company’s 10-year, $20-billion “Growing the Gulf” investment initiative that, launched in 2017, outlined plans to build and expand manufacturing installations along the US Gulf Coast (OGJ Online, Mar. 9, 2017).

“Our Baytown chemical expansion will put us in a solid position to maximize the value of increased Permian basin production and will deliver higher-demand, higher-value products produced at our Gulf Coast refining and chemical facilities,” said Darren W. Woods, ExxonMobil’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Woods said the company’s recent investments, such as a major expansion of oil and gas production in the Permian basin and the planned expansion at Baytown, will continue to boost the US economy.

Located on about 3,400 acres along the Houston Ship Channel, about 25 miles east of Houston, ExxonMobil’s Baytown complex includes a 584,000-b/d refinery, integrated chemical, olefins, and plastics plants, as well as a global technology center.

ExxonMobil Chemical Co. most recently started up its 1.5 million-tpy ethane steam cracker at the Baytown complex, which provides ethylene feedstock for two 650,000-tpy high-performance polyethylene lines that began production in fall 2017 at the company’s plastics plant in Mont Belvieu, Tex. (OGJ Online, July 26, 2018).

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].