Project Profile
Value: US$1 billion
Location: Close to Corpus Christi, Ingleside, Nueces and San Patricio Counties, state of Texas, USA
Capacity: 544,000 t/y (1.2 billion pound per year)
Area: unknown
Start-up Year: 1Q 2017
On December 2012, Occidental Chemical Corporation (OxyChem) submitted a permit application to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the construction of a new ethylene cracker at Ingleside in Texas, USA. OxyChem application follows the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in August 2012 with Mexichem to supply vinyl chloride monomer (VCM). The VCM is used as primary feedstock to produce PolyVinyl Chloride (PVC) to produce packaging, pipes, coatings, wire insulation, anti-freeze and hundreds of other domestic and industrial applications. According to this MOU, OxyChem and Mexichem would create a 50/50 joint venture to build a new ethylene cracker in Ingleside, close to Corpus Christi, at actual OxyChem facilities. In line with the application submitted to the EPA, this new ethylene cracker should have a capacity of 544,000 t/y (1.2 billion pound per year). Production is expected to commence in the first quarter of 2017.
This new ethylene cracker project should also include a new fractionation plant for the production of ethane from the market supply of natural gas liquids (NGL). This NGL fractionation plant should then supply the ethane by pipeline to the cracker to be installed along the existing OxyChem VCM plant. This ethane feed will be combined with the recycled ethane from the ethylene fractionator and super heated before reaching the cracking furnaces. These furnaces will be use the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology to control the NOx emissions. Then the ethylene produced from the cracker shall be carried out by pipeline to the VCM plant or exported to other markets such as Mexichem. The project is estimated to require US$1 billion capital expenditure. In this initiative, OxyChem is joining the series of ethylene cracker projects announced these last months by ChevronPhillips, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil to be located in the same area, around the Gulf of Mexico and Shell Appalachia project, also in USA.
Operators:
Joint Venture operating with 100% interest:
Occidental Chemical Corporation (OxyChem): 50% interest
Mexichem: 50% interest
Contractors:
CB&I: - Provide the Ethylene technology license, a feasibility study and FEED services for the project
- Contract valued at approximately US$115 million, as part of the scope of the ethylene project, by Ingleside Ethylene LLC, for the engineering, procurement and construction of an ethylene storage facility in Markham, Texas. The scope of work consists of the surface facilities—including compression, dehydration, metering and associated pipe fabrication—at the salt cavern storage location. CB&I is providing the license for the ethylene technology, five SRT® (short residence time) cracking heaters and the engineering, procurement and construction of the ethylene cracker in Ingleside, Texas.