Chevron Phillips Chemical has finished building two polyethylene units in Old Ocean, southwest of Houston, a “major milestone” in its $6 billion petrochemical expansion along the Gulf Coast.
The Woodlands-based company, a joint venture of California’s Chevron Corp. and Houston’s Phillips 66, is now testing the units “to ensure a safe and reliable start-up, and consistent, high-quality production,” the company said in an announcement on Monday. They expect operations to start next quarter.
Each unit will produce at least 500,000 metric tons of product annually.
Chief executive Peter Cella said the expansion allows Chevron Phillips to take advantage of cheap and plentiful natural gas from the U.S. shale boom to meet growing global demand for polyethylene — one of the most common forms of plastic — to make performance films, high-pressure pipe and packaging.
Monday’s announcement marks one of the last stops in the massive expansion. The company has already finished a pipeline and storage system for ethylene — a feedstock for the units. It has also built a “state-of-the-art” rail facility with the capacity to store 1,500 rail cars to ship polyethylene pellets to customers around the world.
It is still working on a new ethane cracker in Baytown, just east of Houston, which it expects to finish in the fourth quarter of 2017.
This article first appeared on the Houston Chronicle – an Energy Voice content partner. For more click here.