Another ethylene plant to rise on the Gulf

Abstract

In yet another petrochemical venture meant to take advantage of cheap U.S. shale gas, French oil giant Total is joining with Canada’s Nova Chemicals and Austria’s Borealis to build a $1.7 billion ethylene cracker and a polyethylene plant, both in Texas. The cracker will have 1 million metric tons per year of capacity. It will be located in Port Arthur, adjacent to a Total refinery and an ethylene cracker joint venture that Total and BASF started up in 2001. The polyethylene plant, in Bayport, will have 625,000 metric tons of capacity and will be based on Borealis’s Borstar technology. The three-way partnership will also include a 400,000-metric-ton-per-year polyethylene facility in Bayport that Total currently owns and operates. Total, which will own half of the venture, has been contemplating the ethylene cracker since 2013 and has permits in hand from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The companies expect to make