Three-Way Joint Venture to Center on Texas Petchem Projects

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Total SA (NYSE:TOT) (Paris, France), Borealis AG (Vienna, Austria) and NOVA Chemicals Corporation (Calgary, Alberta) have entered a definitive agreement to form a petrochemicals joint venture centered on Texas projects, the companies announced Monday.

Total will own 50% of the joint venture and Novealis Holdings LLC, a joint venture between Borealis and NOVA Chemicals, will own the remaining 50%.

The joint venture, which was first announced by Total in March 2017, will include Total's 1 million-metric-ton-per-year grassroot ethane cracker project in Port Arthur, Texas. Site preparation is underway, with completion expected in fourth-quarter 2020. Located next to Total's Port Arthur Refinery and the existing Total/BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) steam cracker, the new ethane cracker project is expected to create about 1,500 jobs during the peak of engineering and construction activity, according to Total. Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (NYSE:CBI) (CB&I) (The Hague, Netherlands) is the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) provider. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

The ethane cracker would provide feedstock to a planned 625,000-ton-per-year polyethylene unit, also part of the joint venture, at Total's Bayport, Texas, site, following a "decision on the outcome of an acceptable EPC contract" for the polyethylene unit, the companies said in a press release. Jacobs Engineering Group Incorporated (NYSE:JEC) (Dallas, Texas) is performing design engineering and front-end engineering design (FEED) studies for the project , which is expected to kick off construction in mid-2019, with completion in fourth-quarter 2021. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

The joint venture also will include Total's existing 400,000-ton-per-year polyethylene facility in Bayport.

Industrial Info is tracking nearly $3 billion in active Total SA petrochemical and refining projects in Texas. These include a $130 million utilities project tied to new ethane cracker and a $30 million distributed control system upgrade at Total's 173,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Port Arthur Refinery. For more information, see Industrial Info's project reports on the ethane cracker utilities project and the refinery DCS upgrade.

Industrial Info is tracking more than $38 billion in Total SA projects globally, as well nearly $1.9 billion in active NOVA Chemicals projects and $4.31 billion in project activity that is tied to Borealis.

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