INEOS Secures $3.7 Billion Funding for Europe's Cleanest Ethane Cracker

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--INEOS Group AG (London, England) has secured financing of 3.5 billion euro (US$3.7 billion) for one of Europe's largest and "greenest" petrochemical projects.

Project ONE, located at the Port of Antwerp, Belgium, will see the construction of a low-carbon ethane cracker which INEOS has billed as the "biggest investment in European chemicals in a generation." Construction has gotten underway, and when commissioned in 2026, it will be capable of producing up to 1.45 million tonnes of ethylene per year. Ethylene is one of the most widely used basic chemicals in the world, spanning medical applications, lightweight car and wind turbine components, water and gas pipes, food packaging and smartphones, among others. According to the company, the plant will have the lowest carbon footprint of all European crackers, "five times better than the worst in Europe and two times better than the best. It will have the ability of operating entirely with low carbon hydrogen and has room for a carbon capture facility and future electric furnaces."

"We are thrilled to reach this milestone and secure this funding," said Jason Meers, chief financial officer, INEOS Project ONE. "Bringing together such a large number of environmentally focused commercial banks alongside four governmental agencies demonstrates the huge importance of the project. Our ethane cracker will set new environmental standards for Europe as well as help revitalize the whole of the European chemical industry. Project ONE is a game changer for Europe. It will bring new opportunities to the chemical cluster in Antwerp as well as strengthen the resilience of the whole of the European chemical sector."

The cracker will cover an area of 75,000 square meters, on a massive site the equivalent of 128 football fields. Construction will require "four Eiffel Towers of steel, 2,000 kilometers (km) of piping and around 8 million working hours." There will also be storage tanks and utilities, workshops, warehouses, an administrative campus with offices, restaurant and fitness room. Commenting on the scale of the project, Ronny Bertels, general manager and director at construction partner, Mourik NV added: "This is a very special project for both Aertssen Infra and ourselves, and immediately the largest industrial project we have ever realized, involving all the disciplines at our disposal. On this site, the law of large numbers comes into play: we are talking about 4-kilometer (km) of sheet piling, 26-km of drainage, 260 pumps, 300,000 tonnes of earthmoving, and a water treatment plant that can handle 75 cubic meters per hour. That is unprecedented."

The investment by INEOS comes at a very difficult time for the European chemicals industry that has seen industry heavyweight BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) announce that it will "permanently" cut costs at its European sites to protect the company from soaring natural gas and energy prices. Last November, Industrial Info reported that the company is introducing cost-saving measures until 2024 that it expects will save it 500 million euro (US$534 million) across non-production units in operating, service and research and development (R&D) divisions as well as in the corporate center. More than half of the cost savings are to be realized at its major Ludwigshafen site in Germany. For additional information, see November 7, 2022, article--BASF Downsizing European Operations.

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