Dow Chemical: New PDH plant in Texas passes performance testing

Dow Chemical announced Monday that its new world-scale propane dehydrogenation unit (PDH), located at the company’s Oyster Creek site in Freeport, Texas, successfully completed the performance test.

The passing of the test certifies that the unit is operating at full capacity, and is meeting the Honeywell UOP Oleflex performance guarantee, according to Dow officials.

The new 750,000-tpy facility began commercial operations in December 2015 and completed the performance test in less than two months.

Dow says these milestones represent progress on the company's comprehensive investment plan to further connect its US operations with cost-advantaged feedstocks from increasing supplies of US shale gas and deliver a long-term competitive advantage for Dow’s performance materials, consumer and infrastructure solutions businesses.

“Dow’s world-scale PDH unit has reached full rates and passed acceptance testing in record time,” said Jim Fitterling, Dow’s president and chief operating officer. “The unit enables the replacement of purchased propylene with cost-advantaged production that will ultimately enable growth in attractive markets across North and South America. The timing of Dow’s strategic growth investments on the US Gulf Coast has afforded us first-mover advantage.”

Dow said it also continues to make significant progress on its world-scale ethylene unit, supporting infrastructure and the derivative investments aligned to the company's performance plastics franchise, located at Dow sites across the US Gulf Coast. The completion of the performance plastics derivative investments will be synchronized with the new ethylene unit.

“The successful start-up of UOP’s Oleflex unit at Dow’s Gulf Coast facility is a major milestone in our ability to provide world-class technology that enables companies like Dow to use domestic shale gas resources to produce key petrochemicals in the US,” said Mike Millard, vice president and general manager of Honeywell UOP’s process technology and equipment business. 

“In addition to technology licensing, UOP provided the basic engineering design, modular CCR, control systems, catalyst, adsorbent and start-up services for the unit, which reached acceptance in record time," he added.