Williams Partners LP once again has postponed sales of ethylene production from its newly rebuilt Geismar, La., olefins plant amid ongoing efforts to fully commission the expansion and upgrading project following an explosion that hit the site in 2013 (OGJ Online, June 13, 2013).
Commissioning efforts for the Geismar project remain under way and continue to near completion, but the company has delayed the start of ethylene sales to January from a previously announced target of December, Williams Partners said (OGJ Online, Dec. 2, 2014).
“This commissioning effort has been especially challenging after the uncharacteristically hard shutdown at the time of the [June 2013] incident and as a result of being out of commission for more than a year,” said John Dearborn, Williams Partners’ senior vice-president of NGL and petrochemical services.
The persistent delays to a full start-up of the rebuilt plant stem from continued work on safety-related upgrades.
“Safety is our number one priority and guides all milestones related to this project as we work to rebuild our reputation as a safe and reliable supplier of olefins,” Dearborn said.
Ethylene production sales from Geismar have hit multiple delays as the company continued to ramp up safety measures at the site, which increased capital spending for the project by $20 million (OGJ Online, Oct. 29, 2014).
The 600 million-lb/year Geismar expansion project was designed to boost the plant’s ethylene production capacity to 1.95 billion lb/year from 1.35 billion lb/year, with Williams Partners’ share of the total capacity amounting to about 1.7 billion lb/year.
