Materials giant LyondellBasell Industries is considering a major polypropylene resin and feedstocks project on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
CEO Bob Patel discussed the potential project in recent interviews with the ICIS news service and the Houston Chronicle. A spokesman with Houston-based LBI confirmed those comments and said a decision on the project should be made by the end of 2018.
Patel's comments "are not a formal announcement that we are building a new plant," the spokesman said in an email to Plastics News.
Patel said the project would have a price tag of more than $2 billion and could include new PP capacity to meet domestic demand, as well as propylene feedstock made via propane dehydrogenation (PDH).
The proposed expansion would be in addition to a $2.4 billion project making upstream chemicals on the Gulf Coast that LBI announced in July. The firm also is in the process of building a new 1.1 billion pound capacity high density polyethylene plant in LaPorte, Texas. That unit is expected to start production in 2019.
LBI ranks as one of the world's largest producers of PE and PP. The firm posted global sales of $29.2 billion in 2016.
