OUTLOOK ’18: First wave of new US plants to continue in new year

HOUSTON (ICIS)–The US will continue starting up new petrochemical plants in 2018, after Hurricane Harvey kept some companies from beginning operations during the previous year.

The table below shows the plants that will start up in 2018:

Company	Capacity	Product	Site	Start-up
Chevron Phillips	1.5m	Ethylene	Cedar Bayou, Texas	Q1 2018
ExxonMobil	1.5m	Ethylene	Baytown, Texas	mid-2018
Sasol	1.5m	Ethylene	Lake Charles, Louisiana	H2 2018
Sasol	470,000	LLDPE	Lake Charles, Louisiana	H2 2018
Sasol	420,000	LDPE	Lake Charles, Louisiana	H2 2018
Formosa Plastics	400,000	LDPE	Point Comfort, Texas	H2 2018
Formosa Plastics	400,000	HDPE	Point Comfort, Texas	H2 2018
Formosa Plastics	1.2m	Ethylene	Point Comfort, Texas	Q4 2018

These plants represent a continuation of the wave of start-ups that began in 2017.

The table below shows the major plants that either started operations in 2017 or were expected to do so by the end of the year:

Company	Capacity	Product	Site
Braskem	NA	UHMWPE	La Porte, Texas
Chevron Phillips	500,000	Bimodal HDPE	Old Ocean, Texas
Chevron Phillips	500,000	mLLDPE	Old Ocean, Texas
DowDuPont	1.5m	Ethylene	Freeport, Texas
DowDuPont	400,000	Elite PE	Freeport, Texas
DowDuPont	350,000	specialty LDPE	Plaquemine, Louisiana
ExxonMobil	650,000	mLLDPE	Mont Belvieu, Texas
ExxonMobil	650,000	LLDPE	Mont Belvieu, Texas
NOVA Chemicals	454,000	LLDPE	Joffre, Alberta
Occidental Chemical/Mexichem	544,000	Ethylene	Ingleside, Texas
Sasol/INEOS	470,000	HDPE	La Porte, Texas

The year 2017 was not just a time of plant start-ups. Companies also announced plans to build even more plants, which could extend the boom well into the next decade.

The wave of new plants being built in the US is based on low-cost feedstock made available by the advent of shale gas.

US energy producers late adapted the shale-gas technology to oil production, providing the chemical industry with even more supplies of low-cost ethane and other natural-gas liquids (NGLs).

Low oil prices interrupted the growth of this second source of NGLs. But prices have since recovered from their lows, and oil producers found ways to cut costs. Shale oil has once again became profitable, even as prices remain below their previous highs.

Not only did oil production recover in the US, it set new records, and NGL output also rose as a result. Midstream companies were once again building new natural-gas processing plants and NGL pipelines to handle all of the associated gas being produced by these new wells.

Once again, the US was enjoying rising supplies of feedstock. They responded by announcing new projects. For many of these announcements as well as for older ones, companies have yet to make final investment decisions (FIDs).

Regardless of where companies stand in the decision-making process, most of them are building either crackers or downstream polyethylene (PE) plants. But some companies are building plants that will make other products.

Enterprise Products is expected to soon start up its new propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant in Mont Belvieu, Texas. It has a propylene capacity of 750,000 tonnes/year.

In 2017, LyondellBasell made a final investment decision to build a propylene oxide/tertiary butyl alcohol (PO/TBA) plant in Channelview, Texas. When completed in 2021, the plant will produce 470,000 tonnes/year of PO and 1m tonnes/year of TBA.

Braskem approved a new 450,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) plant in La Porte, Texas.

Shintech may build a new vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) plant and expand a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) unit in Louisiana.

Mossi & Ghisolfi (M&G) was supposed to complete an integrated polyester plant that it was building in Corpus Christi, Texas. However, the company filed  for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, and it now plans to sell the unfinished project. The plant would have a capacity of 1.1m tonnes/year of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and 1.3m tonnes/year of purified terephthalate acid (PTA).