LyondellBasell advances construction on La Porte HDPE plant
LyondellBasell Industries NV is progressing with construction of the previously announced grassroots high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plant now under way at its petrochemical complex in La Porte, Tex. (OGJ Online, May 16, 2017).
As of Nov. 5, key pieces of equipment, including a multizone circulating reactor, extruder, and gas-phase reactor have all been installed at the new Hyperzone polyethylene (PE) plant, LyondellBasell said.
Key equipment installed at the site since start of construction in May 2017 includes two reactors, the first and heaviest of which is a gas-phase reactor weighing more than 500 tonnes, as well as the second reactor, which is a 200-ft multizone circulating reactor exclusively designed for the Hyperzone PE technology.
Teams have also safely installed a 146-ft flushing silo to ensure polymer particles are dry before extruding them into pellets, as well as laid nearly 19 miles of pipe and 38 miles of wire and cable, the operator said.
As modeled by Impact DataSource, Austin, the $725-million project will have a capacity of 1.1 billion lb/year of HDPE and is projected to generate more than $67 million in tax benefits for the state, county, school district, community college, and other local taxing districts over a 10-year period following construction.
Additionally, the project will create up to more than 1,000 jobs at the peak of construction and 75 permanent positions, LyondellBasell said.
The company said it selected its La Porte site for the new plant because of the complex’s proximity both to price-advantaged feedstock from increased North American shale production and transportation systems needed to ship product to global markets.
The new HDPE plant—which will be the first ever to use LyondellBasell’s proprietary Hyperzone PE technology, a cascade-gas phase process based on the company’s existing Multizone circulating-reactor technology—is scheduled for startup in 2019.
The HDPE plant comes as part of LyondellBasell’s $5 billion of investments announced during the past 6 years to expand and build US manufacturing sites, including construction of the world’s largest propylene oxide (PO) and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) plant, which will be co-located at the company’s Channelview and Bayport, Tex., sites (OGJ Online, Aug. 23, 2018).
Scheduled for startup in 2021, the 140-acre PO-TBA plant will produce 1 billion lb/year of PO and 2.2 billion lb/year of TBA, the latter of which will move to an associated 34-acre ethers unit to be built at the company’s Bayport complex near Pasadena, Tex., for conversion into high-octane gasoline components methyl tertiary butyl ether and ethyl tertiary butyl ether.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
