US EPA issues greenhouse-gas permit for Ascend’s PDH plant
Al Greenwood
13-Jun-2014
HOUSTON (ICIS)–The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a greenhouse gas permit for a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant that Ascend Performance Materials plans to build in Chocolate Bayou, Texas, the US regulator said on Friday.
Ascend is developing the plant under the name C3 Petrochemicals. It will be in Chocolate Bayou, Texas, in Brazoria County, and it will have a capacity of 1.17m tonnes/year.
Ascend should complete the plant in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The EPA said that the PDH unit will use a continuous catalytic regenerator that does not use combustion or steam. As a result, it should emit fewer greenhouse gases.
The cost of the plant is $1.2bn, the EPA said.
At Ascend’s complex in Chocolate Bayou, the company takes propylene, ammonia and methanol and converts it into acrylonitrile (ACN) and hydrogen cyanide.
Ascend Performance Materials is a private nylon 6,6 manufacturer owned by SK Capital Partners, a private investment firm based in New York City.
Ascend is among several companies that plan to build PDH plants in the US.
US propylene production has fallen because crackers have switched to lighter feeds, such as ethane and other natural gas liquids (NGLs).
Lighter feeds produce less propylene.
The following lists the announced on-purpose propylene plants in North America.
Company |
Capacity, tonnes |
Site |
Start-up |
| ||
Dow Chemical |
750,000 |
Texas |
Q2 ’15 |
| ||
Ascend Performance Materials |
1,173,000 |
Texas |
Q4 ’15 |
| ||
Formosa Plastics |
658,000 |
Texas |
2016 |
| ||
Enterprise Products |
750,000 |
Texas |
Q1 ’16 |
| ||
Williams |
500,000 |
Alberta |
Q2 ’16 |
| ||
REXtac |
300,000 |
Texas |
2016 |
| ||
Dow Chemical |
new plant |
US |
2018 |
| ||
BASF * |
worldscale |
US |
2019 |
| ||
Enterprise Products |
new plant |
Texas |
NA |
| ||
|
*BASF would build a methane-to-propylene plant | |||||
|
Source: Companies, ICIS | |||||
Additional reporting by Jeremy
Pafford
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