Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP has picked Old Ocean, Texas, as the site for both of its new polyethylene plants.
The Woodlands, Texas, firm in December announced plans to build the new plants, which will have combined annual PE capacity of 2.2 billion pounds. The site selection was confirmed April 30.
The firm also considered Baytown, Texas. Chevron Phillips is building a new ethylene cracker in Baytown that will have annual capacity of 3.3 billion pounds. Both the cracker and the new PE plants are expected to open in 2017. The projects are expected to create 400 permanent jobs and 10,000 temporary engineering and construction jobs. Total cost of the projects is estimated at $5 billion.
Choosing Old Ocean for the new PE plants “better positions the location for potential future investments,” President and CEO Peter Cella said in the release. “This project would benefit our owners, employees, local communities, customer and suppliers.”
The PE units will be designed by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. of Pasadena, Calif. Shaw Group of Baton Rouge, La., will design the ethylene cracker.
New PE and ethylene projects from Chevron Phillips and other North American firms are being driven by newfound supplies of natural gas in the region. Those finds are providing petrochemical makers with long-term supplies of an affordable feedstock, and in turn is giving them confidence to announce investments in the region. Between 2000 and 2010, more than 16,000 miles of new interstate gas pipeline were installed in the U.S. to access the new supplies.
