Chevron Phillips Chemical wins permit to build new Texas ethane cracker
Chevron Phillips Chemical (CPChem) has received air permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for its plan to build a new ethane cracker and polyethylene units in Texas, the company said on Tuesday.
Additionally, the company said it received a greenhouse gas permit from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the cracker earlier this year.
Pending final board approval to be sought later this year, the 1.5 million tpy (3.3 billion pounds/year) ethane cracker would be built at CPChem's Cedar Bayou facility in Baytown, Texas, while the two new polyethylene facilities, each with an annual capacity of 500,000 tpy (1.1 billion pounds), would be built on a site near the company's Sweeny facility in Old Ocean, Texas.
“We now have the requisite permits in hand to initiate construction of the cracker and polyethylene units and remain in the first mover position leading the way as the US petrochemical industry announces significant expansions of capacity as a result of shale resource development,” said Ron Corn, vice president of corporate planning and development.
“We are proud of the project’s progress since we first announced our feasibility study to construct a world-scale ethane cracker and derivatives facilities on the Texas Gulf Coast in March 2011.”
The ethane cracker and two polyethylene units, part of the company’s US Gulf Coast (USGC) petrochemicals project, are expected to create approximately 400 long-term direct jobs and 10,000 engineering and construction jobs.
The estimated completion date for the company's USGC petrochemicals project is 2017.
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