Motiva to buy US Flint Hills cracker, CX unit in Texas

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Motiva Enterprises has agreed to buy Flint Hills Resources’s chemical plants in Port Arthur, Texas.

No purchase price was disclosed. Motiva said it is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Flint Hills’ chemical facilities being sold there include a cracker, cyclohexane unit and associated ethylene and natural-gas liquid (NGL) pipelines, according to a statement from the company.

The capacity of the cracker is 620,000 tonnes/year of ethylene and 340,000 tonnes year of propylene, according to ICIS. Flint Hills’ cyclohexane unit there has a capacity of 266,000 tonnes/year.

Flint Hills acquired the Port Arthur facility in 2007 from Huntsman for $770m, according to a Huntsman release.

Jeff Ramsey, Flint Hills CEO, said that the Port Arthur facility is well-positioned, “especially as part of the Motiva organisation, which has neighbouring assets with strategic synergies and integration opportunities that will help the business remain competitive”.

Motiva, the US refining arm of Saudi Aramco, is headquartered in Houston. Motiva refines, distributes and markets petroleum products throughout the US and owns and operates North America’s largest refinery in Port Arthur, with a crude capacity of more than 630,000 bbl/day.

Flint Hills is a subsidiary of Koch Industries.

The image above shows polyethylene packaging, which is made with ethylene. Photo by Al Greenwood