New Borealis unit uses metallocene catalyst

Borealis AS of Copenhagen, petrochemicals joint venture of Finland's Neste Oy and Norway's Den norske stats oljeselskap AS, has started commercial polyethylene production using a proprietary metallocene catalyst. In other European petrochemical news, BP Chemicals Ltd. has completed plans to increase ethyl acetate production capacity at its Saltend plant near Hull, U.K., by 25,000 metric tons/year by yearend.

Dec. 30, 1996

2 min read

In other European petrochemical news, BP Chemicals Ltd. has completed plans to increase ethyl acetate production capacity at its Saltend plant near Hull, U.K., by 25,000 metric tons/year by yearend.

New catalyst process

Borealis said production at its slurry-loop polyethylene plant at Roenningen, Norway, follows tests with its BC2000 single-site catalyst and a patent license agreement with slurry-loop process developer Exxon Chemical Co.

The company said it is one of the first in Europe to produce metallocene-based polyolefins in commercial volumes and expects to produce 30,000 metric tons/year of polyethylene this way in 1997.

Kent Abbas, Borealis' senior vice president, research and technology, said: "The catalyst is very well-suited to the slurry-loop process and will enable us to run our reactors very reliably and safely at high-capacity utilization rates and closely tailor their output."

Borealis has joined Exxon and Dow Chemical Co. as the only companies to have developed commercial metallocene catalysts. These catalysts are key to improving product consistency in plastics production (OGJ, Aug. 26, p. 17).

Ethyl acetate expansion

BP's ethyl acetate expansion at Hull will take its production capacity in Europe to 220,000 metric tons/year.

This project has followed debottlenecking of the acetic acid plant at Hull and an ethanol plant at Grangemouth, Scotland, both of which provide feedstock for ethyl acetate production.

BP's U.K. ethanol production capacity is 330,000 metric tons/year, from Grangemouth and Baglan Bay plant in South Wales.

Didier Baudrand, BP Chemicals' solvents business manager, said, "It makes good business sense to increase our ethyl acetate production capacity in line with availability of cost-advantaged feedstock from our plants in the U.K. and with our global growth strategy for this product."