BIG IS BEAUTIFUL IS HOW Rudi Schnur, senior vice president for petrochemi-cals at BASF Corp., views the world's largest single-train naphtha cracker, recently completed in Port Arthur, Texas. BASF and 40% partner Atofina Petrochemicals created their BASF Fina Petrochemicals joint venture in 1997 to build the cracker. As its operator, BASF is currently commissioning—cleaning, drying, and testing—the unit in preparation for start-up next quarter. Once the cracker is operational, BASF Fina will have invested about $1 billion to produce 2 billion lb per year of ethylene and 1.2 billion lb of propylene. Another venture between BASF, Atofina, and Shell Chemical, called Sabina Petrochemicals, will very soon start building butadiene extraction and alkylation units next door. They are scheduled to open in 2003 along with a BASF Fina metathesis-based olefins conversion unit (OCU) that will shift ethylene output at the site to 1.8 billion lb and propylene to 1.9 billion lb. LOCATED IN the heart ...