Phillips 66 expands Sweeny fractionation capacity

Nov. 23, 2020
Phillips 66 has started up two new NGL fractionators at its Sweeny Hub in Old Ocean, Tex., quadrupling the site’s processing capacity to 400,000 b/d.

Phillips 66 has started up two new NGL fractionators at its Sweeny Hub in Old Ocean, Tex., quadrupling the site’s processing capacity to 400,000 b/d (OGJ Online, June 27, 2018).

Now in operation, the two 150,000-b/d fractionators reached mechanical completion this summer and came online in September-October, on time and despite challenges posed by weather events and the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, said Phillips 66 and S&B Engineers and Constructors Ltd., which delivered engineering, procurement, and construction on the units based on its own proprietary fractionation plant design.

Part of the $1.4-billion Sweeny Hub Phase 2 expansion and completed about $100 million under budget, the fractionators—two of the world’s largest—form part of the new fractionation complex at Phillips 66’s 256,000-b/d Sweeny refinery, the heart of the Sweeny Hub, which also includes the operator’s Freeport LPG export terminal and nearby Clemens Caverns storage facility, the latter of which recently increased capacity to 16.5 million bbl to support the new fractionators, according to Phillips 66.

Alongside establishing Sweeny as the third-largest NGL fractionation hub in the US, the new fractionators boost integration between Phillips 66 and joint ventures DCP Midstream LLC and Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC (CPChem), with the DCP-Phillips 66 Partners’ Sand Hills pipeline to be among the pipelines delivering raw-NGL feed, also known as Y-grade, for processing. CPChem, which operates steam crackers at Sweeny and Baytown, Tex., will be among customers taking ethane from Sweeny for conversion into chemicals and plastics.

Additionally, Phillips 66 said it will market the propane, butanes, and pentanes-plus domestically and abroad, the latter through the Freeport terminal. Phillips 66 Partners also built a pipeline to transport pentanes-plus to the Pasadena terminal near Houston and is constructing another to transport ethane from Clemens Caverns to petrochemical plants in South Texas.

Underpinned by long-term customer commitments, the two new fractionators follow startup of the first 100,000-b/d Sweeny fractionator in late 2015 (OGJ Online, Dec. 8, 2015).