ExxonMobil Corp. has let a contract to a consortium of Maire Tecnimont SPA subsidiary Tecnimont SPA and Performance Contractors Inc. to provide front-end engineering design, early execution studies, and early procurement activities for new process units and associated offsites and utilities at the operator’s recently approved $2-billion project to expand its Baytown, Tex., chemical plant (OGJ Online, May 3, 2019).
The Tecnimont USA Inc.-led consortium’s scope of work includes implementation of new innovative process units, including a 400,000-tonne/year Vistamaxx performance polymer unit as well as a 350,000-tpy linear alpha olefins unit, Maire Tecnimont said.
The expansion project aims both to maximize value of increased production from the Permian basin as well as expand ExxonMobil’s and its affiliates’ operations at the US Gulf Coast.
Maire Tecnimont initially announced the $230-million reimbursable contract late last year without identifying the Baytown site, according to a Nov. 15, 2018, news release from the service provider.
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 USGC (OGJ Online, Mar. 9, 2017).
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].
