U.S. Northeastern Regions at Work on Nearly $6 Billion in Chemical Projects

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The U.S. Southwest and Gulf Coast areas may lead the rest of the nation in chemical industry projects, but there's plenty to be found in the Northeast and New England regions, where companies such as Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (The Hague, Netherlands) are at work on high-value projects. Industrial Info is tracking more than $5.7 billion worth of chemical projects that are nearing or under construction in the U.S. Northeast and New England regions.

Click on the image at right to see a graph detailing chemical projects in the two regions that are nearing or under construction, by market sector.

The Northeast region includes Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, and the New England region includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Delaware is among the lowest-populated states in the country, but is home to two large chemical unit additions: Croda International plc's (Snaith, England) $200 million ethylene oxide unit at the Atlas Point Surfactants plant in New Castle, and Linde Group's (Munich, Germany) $100 million addition to its air separation plant in Claymont.

Croda expects its new unit to produce about 100,000 metric tons per year of ethylene oxide from corn-based bioethanol, while Linde expects its addition to produce 1,200 tons per day of liquid oxygen and 400 tons per day of industrial gases, including argon and nitrogen. For more information, see Industrial Info's reports on the Croda and Linde projects.

Air Products and Chemicals Incorporated (NYSE:APD) (Allentown, Pennsylvania) has two projects under construction at its air separation plant in Glenmont, New York: a $50 million expansion that will include a new, 1,100-ton-per-day liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen and liquid argon unit, and a $20 million in replacements that will include a new liquefier and a new cold box. For more information, see Industrial Info's reports on the expansion and replacement projects.

In western New York, Niacet Corporation (Niagara Falls, New York), a subsidiary of SK Capital Partners (New York, New York), is preparing to begin a $40 million expansion of its compounds plant in Niagara Falls later this year. Niacet will increase its production of calcium and sodium propionate by 75 million pounds per year. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

The largest chemical project in the area, in terms of investment value, is Shell Chemical Company's (Houston, Texas) $3.5 billion Franklin ethylene plant in Monaca, Pennsylvania, which would use ethane feedstock from the Marcellus Shale to produce as much as 1.5 million metric tons of ethylene per year. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

The plant would provide feedstock for three downstream units:

• $500 million gas-phased high-density polyethylene (HDPE) unit, expected to produce 500,000 tons per year; see project report
• $500 million slurry HDPE unit, expected to produce 500,000 tons per year; see project report
• $500 million linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) unit, expected to produce 550,000 tons per year; see project report

Last week, a state senator and a state representative from southwestern Pennsylvania filed a resolution calling for federal legislation and policies to support the construction of an ethane storage hub, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The legislators cited a 2017 study commissioned by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, which forecasted that, from 2026 to 2030, the ethane output from the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays is expected be enough to support up to four additional ethane steam crackers in the region.

Ferti Technologies (Saint-Michel, Quebec) is preparing to begin construction on a $15 million fertilizer plant in Wallingford, Connecticut, to produce mixed fertilizers. This is the Canadian company's third U.S. facility; the others are in Phoenix, Arizona, and Statesville, North Carolina. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

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