INEOS to Build First European Cracker in 20 Years

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Petrochemical major INEOS (London, England) has committed to spending 2.7 billion euro ($3.16 billion) on two major chemical projects in Europe, including the first new cracker built in the region for two decades.

The company said it will construct a "world-scale ethane cracker and a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit in Northern Europe", although the location of the cracker has yet to be confirmed. Both projects will benefit from U.S. shale-gas economics, INEOS said. INEOS was the first company to deliver U.S. shale gas to Europe in 2016 following a deal with Marcellus shale heavyweight Range Resources Corporation (NYSE:RRC) (Fort Worth, Texas).

For the past year, Industrial Info has been tracking the progress of a planned PDH unit addition at the company's Lilla polyolefin plant near Antwerp in Belgium. The goal is to produce 750,000 tonnes per year of propylene to address increasing product demands.

"This is the largest investment to be made in the European chemical sector for a generation," explained Jim Ratcliffe, the founder and chairman of INEOS. "It will be a game changer for the industry and shows our commitment to manufacturing."

The location of the site will be "determined soon," INEOS stated, and it is likely to be "on the coast of North West Europe". Belgium and Germany are tipped as the leading contenders, with the goal of commissioning the plant within four years. It is unlikely the plant will be based at the massive Grangemouth cracker in the U.K., where the company has already invested heavily in recent years to bring a second manufacturing unit, Train No. 2, back online.

Gerd Franken, chairman of INEOS Olefins and Polymers North, said: "This new project will increase INEOS' self-sufficiency in all key olefin products and give further support to our derivatives business and polymer plants in Europe. All our assets will benefit from our ability to import competitive raw materials from the USA and the rest of the world".

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