PVC leader Shintech Inc. will spend $1.4 billion on a capacity expansion for plastic feedstock ethylene in Plaquemine, La.
The project will include a new ethane crackers, as well as capital upgrades to connect ethylene output to PVC and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) production there, officials said in an April 22 release from the Louisiana Economic Development office.
“Shintech and the state of Louisiana have built a wonderful relationship,” founder and Chairman Chihiro Kanagawa said in the release. “We would like to further strengthen this wonderful relationship.”
The project will create 100 new direct jobs and 350 new contract worker positions. LED officials estimate that the expansion also will create more than 650 new indirect jobs and 2,100 temporary construction jobs.
“Our state is helping companies like Shintech thrive and compete better in the global economy,” Gov. Bobby Jindal said in the release.
From the state, Houston-based Shintech will receive a $5 million performance-based grant to offset the cost of infrastructure improvements in Plaquemine. Louisiana also will provide Shintech with a five-year, $5 million tax credit.
Groundbreaking is set for the second quarter of 2015, with completion expected in the first half of 2018. In a preliminary environmental filing last year, Shintech officials said the expansion would include more than 1 billion pounds of annual ethylene capacity.
The project brings the total amount of Shintech's investment in Louisiana to date to $4.7 billion. The firm also makes PVC and VCM at a plant in Addis. The Addis site — as well as a site in Alvin, Texas — also was considered for the ethylene expansion before Plaquemine was chosen.
In Plaquemine, Shintech is close to completing a $500 million expansion that would include more than 700 million pounds of new annual capacity for both PVC and VCM.
Shintech ranks as one of North America's largest PVC makers and compounders. The firm is a unit of global PVC leader Shin-Etsu Group of Japan.