LyondellBasell (NYSE: LYB) plans to expand its Gulf Coast footprint with another chemical plant.
The company announced its decision to build the plant on July 29, but an exact location has not been set. LyondellBasell previously said it was considering building a new Texas plant to produce more polyethylene, the most common form of plastic. At the time, the company said it plans to spend $4 billion through 2020 in the Texas and Gulf Coast regions to take advantage of the low cost of oil.
The high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plant will have an annual capacity of 1.1 billion pounds and will use the company’s new proprietary technology to produce a variety of high-performance multimodal HDPE products. The HDPE could be used to make things such as pipes, bottles, containers, toys, film, health care items, plastic fuel tanks and industrial packaging.
The plant could create up to 1,000 construction jobs and as many as 75 permanent jobs. It’s expected to start up in 2019.
“We believe that the combination of our latest polyolefins technology and new ethylene capacity from low cost debottlenecks will provide a good return on investment,” LyondellBasell CEO Bob Patel said in the company’s statement. “Additionally, this project enhances our ethylene integration strategy, allowing us to capture value across the ethylene value chain.”
The new project is the latest in a series of expansions LyondellBasell has announced in the Gulf Coast area.
The Netherlands-based company, which has its operational headquarters in Houston, officially announced plans to build the world’s largest propylene oxide (PO) and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) plant in the greater Houston area in November. In early 2015, the company announced it would double its current TEG production capacity at the existing Bayport Underwood plant. In 2014, the company announced plans to install two large cracking furnaces that are slated to increase production by 250 million pounds per year at its Channelview plant.
Another chemical plant in the works is from Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. The joint venture is considering plans to develop an ethylene plant on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Specifically, the companies are looking at sites in Victoria, Texas, and San Patricio County near Corpus Christi, as well as sites in Louisiana near Baton Rouge.
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