Dow to expand ethylene capacity at Fort Saskatchewan plant

Dow Inc. is moving forward with a project to incrementally expand ethylene capacity at subsidiary Dow Chemical Canada ULC’s (Dow Canada) petrochemicals manufacturing site just north of Fort Saskatchewan, Alta.

Known as the FS1 project, the expansion will involve increasing capacity of the ethylene plant by about 130,000 tonnes/year with the addition of another furnace, Dow told investors in its latest earnings presentation for fourth-quarter 2019.

Scheduled for startup during first-half 2021, additional ethylene produced by the $200-225-million expansion will be consumed by existing polyethylene assets in the region, according to the operator.

Dow said it will co-invest in the expansion with an unidentified regional customer, evenly sharing project costs and ethylene output.

With all regulatory approvals previously secured from Alberta’s Ministry of Environment and Parks, construction on the FS1 project—which, in addition to the new furnace, also will involve installation of unidentified associated equipment—is already under way, according to Dow Canada’s website.

While Dow does not disclose production capacities of specific plants per company policy, Dow Canada’s Fort Saskatchewan manufacturing site produces more than 1.4 million tpy of products, including ethylene and polyethylene, according to a 2018 regional company overview from Alberta’s Industrial Heartland Association.

Texas expansion

Dow also told investors it expects to bring two new furnaces into service as part of its previously announced 500,000-tpy capacity expansion of its 1.5 million-tpy TX-9 ethylene cracker at the operator’s olefins manufacturing complex in Freeport, Tex. (OGJ Online, May 12, 2017).

With the furnaces scheduled to come online by the middle of this year's second-quarter, Dow said it expects to begin commissioning activities at the site by the end of this quarter.

Once fully commissioned, the expanded TX-9 cracker will have a capacity of 2 million tpy, making it the world’s largest ethylene facility, Dow said.