Indorama Ventures Olefins LLC (IVO), an indirect subsidiary of Thailand’s Indorama Ventures PCL (IVP), Bangkok, has achieved mechanical completion of its previously announced project to renovate and restart a dormant ethane cracker in Westlake, La., just west of Lake Charles in Calcasieu Parish (OGJ Online, Sept. 25, 2016).
With construction activities now completed, the 440,000-tonne/year cracker is undergoing trial runs, and IVO has stabilized production of on-spec ethylene and its byproducts at five of its seven furnaces, which will continue ramping up gradually over the course of this year’s second quarter, the operator said.
IVO previously entered a long-term supply agreement with Targa Resources Corp., Houston, for delivery of all ethane and propane feedstock supplies for the project (OGJ Online, Dec. 15, 2016).
Originally planned for commissioning in late 2017, the refurbished cracker—which is to be jointly owned by IVP (76%) and Singapore-based Indorama Corp. (24%)—is designed to process both ethane and propane feedstock from US shale to produce about ethylene and propylene.
Indorama said that, at normalized production, IVP will secure about 75% of ethylene output for internal consumption for production of ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol, with remaining production to be sold to market.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
