Plans Finalized To Restart 400 Million Pound Ethylene Cracker in Texas

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). After significant delays, Huntsman (Salt Lake City, Utah) is restarting an idled 400-million-pound-per-year (Unit A3) ethylene cracker at its Port Neches, Texas, plant. Huntsman shut down the unit for a routine turnaround in June of 2001 and then kept it down and idled it, due to poor market conditions. Plans to restart the unit in December 2002 were delayed, due to poor economic conditions. Numerous capital upgrades and repairs were performed during the 2001 turnaround, so fortunately the investment cost to bring the unit back online will be minimal.

Huntsman plans to have the unit operational by September of this year, and once online, Huntsman will have a total of 1.8 billion pounds per year of ethylene production capacity in the United States.

Huntsman is a worldwide petrochemical company with three regional business sectors located in the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. They manufacture a vast array of commodity chemicals for the petrochemical and plastic industries. Ethylene is used as a feedstock to produce such products as ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol used in the production of consumer products such as detergents, cosmetics, adhesives, textiles and antifreeze. Huntsman annually produces 4 billion pounds of ethylene and 2 billion pounds propylene worldwide, and is one of North America's largest chemical producers.

For details see related industry alert Huntsman Delays Restart of Gulf Coast Ethylene Unit

Plant - 1001886
PEC - 01008821