US Dow completes construction of 400,000 tonne/year PE plant

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Dow Chemical has completed construction of a new 400,000 tonne/year polyethylene (PE) plant at Freeport, Texas, the US-based chemicals major said in an update on Tuesday.

The PE unit is the first of four new derivative investments under way at Dow’s manufacturing sites in Texas and Louisiana as part of the company’s previously announced $6bn expansion on the US Gulf Coast.

The PE unit now enters its commissioning and start-up phase in sequence with the mid-year start-up of Dow’s 1.5m tonne/year ethylene facility at Freeport.

The PE plant is expected to ramp up during the third quarter and be fully operational in the fourth quarter. It will produce ELITE-brand PE resins for use in flexible packaging applications for food, personal hygiene products and industrial packaging.

“The mechanical completion of our first new PE unit is yet another milestone that brings us closer to having more volume to meet growing customer demand globally,” said Diego Donoso, business president for Dow’s packaging and specialty plastics business.

Dow’s other three derivative units along with a planned debottleneck are proceeding on schedule and are staged to come online throughout 2017 and 2018, the company added.

The three derivatives plants are a new 350,000 tonne/year specialty low density PE plant which is also expected to come online in coordination with the cracker; a 200,000 tonne/year ethylenepropylene diene monomer (EPDM), expected to start up in early 2018; and a 320,000 tonne/year specialty and conventional polyolefin elastomers plant, expected to come online in late 2018.

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