Dow Freeport
Everything is bigger in Texas, and Dow Chemical's $6 billion expansion project -- the world's largest ethylene cracker facility -- is proof.
Located in Freeport on the Texas Gulf Coast, the cracker started up in September 2017 "without significant issues," according to Ron Huijsmans, U.S. Gulf Coast program director for Dow Chemical.
Huijsmans said "overall, air quality was good," and schedules were adhered to within their anticipated window.
"Costs were somewhat higher than expected, but we feel that is an opportunity to optimize cost," Huijsmans said. He discussed highlights on the road to Dow's mammoth expansion at the Downstream Conference and Exhibition held recently in Galveston, Texas.
But regarding safety performance, Huijsmans and his Dow colleagues are "very happy, for sure" with the project's total recordable injury rate of 0.13.
"That's really good compared to the industry, and a little bit better than Dow on average," Huijsmans said. "We did that over a six-year timeframe where we expended about 55 million working hours. That's a lot of hours, but I think we were very efficient in our man-hour spending."
Dow Chemical's Program Director Scot Scherwitz said he agrees with Huijsmans' assessment, noting the company started the cracker project with the vision of delivering a highly reliable asset not just safely but also on time.
"We took the approach that safety was going to be the No. 1 priority," Scherwitz said. "We need to work that into everything we do and into all of our strategies. And we were not going to have any compromises in quality.
"We got some really good expertise involved in the constructability with the engineering firms that we used, as well as owner teams who we put on the project. We had functional leaders who drove decisions for the program, and then the project teams were able to focus on managing the projects, which really helped us be successful."
Call in 'The A-Team'
According to Scherwitz, Dow is not only the largest consumer of ethylene in the world but also the largest producer of ethylene in the world, with 190 producers in operation. Therefore, it was of the utmost importance, he said, to utilize "The A-Team" during the execution phase of the project.
"We did some rigorous site study and technology selection," Scherwitz said. "When we started looking at this project, we went to all the technology providers and wanted to test out the 2,000-kta capability. All of them said they could do it and thought that was achievable.
"We didn't have all the automation people that we needed. About one-third of our staff was Dow, so we sourced a company that we had been successful with in the past in Thailand. We had kind of a global team to make sure we had the right people in the right roles, regardless of their location."
Having perfect feed would also be integral to the project's success, Scherwitz said. Solid home office performance, sourcing and contracting with an emphasis on accountability, as well as build and turnover of systems were more key criteria.
"We did put in 50 million modules that moved about one-third of our steel and one-third of our pipe off-site," Scherwitz said. "When you look at the labor force on the Gulf Coast, that really helped us to be successful."
Dow Commissioning and Startup Leader William Newton summarized the essence of that success. "Developing and executing the strategy, and then realizing the vision, are basic elements of the expansion's construction and startup," he said.
"Even though we had our issues in some areas, we were able to deliver a very successful project," Huijsmans concluded. "And we are hoping to be even more successful in the future."
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