Lotte Chemical Louisiana LLC, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Lotte Chemical Corp., has let a contract to Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corp. (TNSC) of Japan’s subsidiary Matheson Tri-Gas Inc., Basking Ridge, NJ, to build an air separation unit (ASU) at Lotte’s monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant under construction next to its 1 million-tonne/year ethane cracker project with Axiall Corp. in Lake Charles, La. (OGJ Online, June 14, 2016).
Matheson will build, own, and operate the ASU unit and associated pipeline, which will supply tonnage oxygen and nitrogen to the 700,000-tpy MEG plant, the service company said.
The ASU unit, which will be fabricated in Japan, will be equipped with TNSC’s proprietary advanced cryogenic distillation technology, Matheson said.
The company disclosed no details regarding capacity of the unit or the value and duration of the contract.
LACC LLC, Atlanta, a subsidiary of Axiall and Lotte Chemical USA Corp.’s 50–50 joint venture Eagle US 2 LLC, started construction on its long-planned $3-billion Lake Charles petrochemical project in June, just following announcement of Axiall’s now-completed merger with Houston-based Westlake Chemical Corp. (OGJ Online, Sept. 6, 2016).
Under construction on the same property in southwest Louisiana, near Axiall’s existing manufacturing plants in Calcasieu Parish, LACC’s $1.9-billion ethane cracker complex and Lotte’s associated $1.1 billion MEG plant intend to take advantage of access to competitive US shale feedstock resources as well as existing ethylene-distribution infrastructure (OGJ Online, June 9, 2016).
Both the cracker and MEG plant remain on schedule for startup in early 2019.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
