US EPA issues greenhouse-gas permit for Ascend’s PDH plant

Al Greenwood

13-Jun-2014

US EPA issues greenhouse-gas permit for AscendHOUSTON (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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