Westlake Petrochemicals Plans Olefins and Polyolefins Project Work in Louisiana

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Westlake Petrochemicals Corporation (Sulphur, Louisiana), a subsidiary of Westlake Chemical Corporation (NYSE:WLK)(Houston, Texas), will soon select an engineer to complete the design and engineering of a Feed Flex Project for its existing 1.3 billion pound per year Petro 2 ethylene unit located in Sulphur. This nearly $30 million project will include major upgrades and changes in the distillation end of the ethylene plant to allow for the use of lighter naphtha feedstock.

This process change will allow Westlake to alternate the use of different feedstock based on market cost and produce a more profitable product. These modifications of the unit's distillation area and minor upgrades of its seven furnaces will ultimately equal an increase in production capacity to an estimated 1.61 billion pounds per year. Industrialinfo.com originally reported plans for this project in April of 2003 as part of its North American Projects Database. Westlake could select an engineer for this project in March with construction beginning late this summer and completed during a major maintenance turnaround in the winter.

Early planning is also underway for a major expansion of the Poly 3 area of the Sulphur site, which produces polyethylene. Construction for this estimated $30 million project could begin in the second quarter of 2006 and include multiple process debottlenecks and retrofits aimed at increasing the unit's production capacity. Westlake is expected to select an engineer to assist with preliminary design and estimating within the next several months.

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