Shintech may be targeting Plaquemine for Louisiana ethane cracker

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Shintech, the US subsidiary of Tokyo-based Shin-Etsu Chemical, said on Tuesday that the company is evaluating four pieces of property, including one in Texas, to build a planned 500,000 tonnes/year ethane cracker.

Word of the four locations came in the company’s second news release of the day.

However, in its air permit application to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) dated 14 April, Shintech specifies that the company’s complex near Plaquemine, Louisiana, “will be” where the plant is located. It also reiterates payment of $77,062.86 for the permit process and asks for a waiver of a portion of the fees.

The first news release announced that Shintech had sought an air permit from the LDEQ to build an ethane cracker.

The company said that land that it owned would be a leading candidate to site the ethylene plant in its pursuit to become a vertically integrated manufacturer of polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

The second news release, which said that a “final investment decision is still months away”, further stated that the company is evaluating four potential sites, all of which it owns: in Addis, Louisiana, a town in West Baton Rouge Parish; two sites in or near Plaquemine, Louisiana, in Iberville Parish; and a site in Chocolate Bayou, Texas, a few miles from the company’s Freeport complex in Brazoria County.  

No similar permit has been filed with the Texas Department of Environmental Quality (TDEQ) as of Tuesday afternoon.

Developing its own ethylene plant would allow the company to produce in-house feedstock for its PVC manufacturing operations, the company said. It would also more thoroughly tie the company to the North American shale gas cost advantage by getting the ethane from US fields.

Shintech has become a major player in the US PVC market and also exports significant amounts of material to Latin America.

Below is a map Shintech sent to the LDEQ of the proposed site for the ethane cracker along the Mississippi river.