Chevron Phillips Chemical commissions new Old Ocean units
Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. has successfully completed commissioning and begun startup of its new polyethylene units at Old Ocean, Texas. Each unit will produce up to 500,000 metric tons annually to service the ever-increasing global demand for polyethylene.
"In 2011, Chevron Phillips Chemical was the first to announce a leading-edge $6 billion petrochemicals project to take advantage of the newfound shale gas resources in the United States, and I am thrilled we are completing the first phase of this project," said Mark Lashier, president and CEO. "I want to thank the thousands of employees and contractors who worked to build this incredible new asset that will allow us to continue to meet the growing demand of our loyal customer base worldwide."
At peak construction, the U.S. Gulf Coast Petrochemicals Project employed approximately 10,000 contractors devoted to completing not just the polyethylene units in Old Ocean but also a new worldscale ethane cracker being built at the company's existing facilities in Baytown, Texas. The Baytown facility recently experienced flooding as a result of Hurricane Harvey. Chevron Phillips Chemical currently expects to complete construction and begin commissioning the ethane cracker by the first quarter of 2018 with a transition to full production during the second quarter of 2018.
For more information, visit www.cpchem.com or call (832) 813-4100.
Eastman completes DMAPA, alkyl alkanolamines expansion
Eastman Chemical Co. has completed an expansion of its dimethylaminopropylamine (DMAPA) and alkyl alkanolamine capacity, which includes diethylaminoethanol, at its manufacturing facility in St. Gabriel, Louisiana.
Sabine Ketsman, vice president and general manager of the Additives & Functional Products segment's Care Chemicals and Animal Nutrition business, said, "The additional capacity, along with improvements in reliability and quality, will give us the ability to better serve the market and create opportunities to win with our customers."
For more information, visit www.eastman.com or call (423) 229-2000.
Dow starts Texas world-scale ethylene production facility
DowDuPont Materials Science, the business division of DowDuPont to be named Dow, has started its new integrated world-scale ethylene production facility and ELITE enhanced polyethylene production facility, both in Freeport, Texas. These two key milestones enable Dow to capture benefits from increasing supplies of U.S. shale gas to deliver differentiated downstream solutions in its core market verticals.
Both units will continue to ramp up through the third quarter and are expected to reach full rates in the fourth quarter of 2017.
A central component of Dow's U.S. Gulf Coast investments, the ethylene production facility has an initial nameplate capacity of 1.5 million metric tons. As part of Dow's next wave of growth investments, the unit will be expanded to 2 million metric tons, making it the world's largest ethylene facility. Measured by total investment per metric ton of capacity, this new ethylene unit represents the least capital-intensive ethylene investment in the region.
The 400,000-metric-ton ELITE polyethylene production unit is the first of four new derivative units at Dow's manufacturing sites in Texas and Louisiana.
For more information, visit www.dow-dupont.com.
Arkema to expand Kentucky fluoropolymer capacity
Arkema will increase fluoropolymer (Kynar® PVDF) capacity at its Calvert City, Kentucky, plant by some 20 percent. The expansion is fueled by strong demand in the new energies and water management markets, as well as in more traditional applications (the chemical process industry and high-performance cables).
The investment, scheduled to start mid- 2018, further supports Arkema's ambition to accelerate the development of its advanced materials, one of the key pillars of its future growth.
For more information, visit www.arkema-americas.com or call (610) 205-7000.