Williams Partners to Sell Stake in Louisiana Olefins Plant to NOVA Chemicals

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Williams Partners (NYSE:WPZ) (Tulsa, Oklahoma) announced on Monday that it will sell its stake in the olefins plant in Geismar, Louisiana, to Canada's NOVA Chemicals Corporation (Calgary, Alberta) for $2.1 billion. Industrial Info is tracking $3.91 billion of projects involving NOVA Chemicals and $2.67 billion involving Williams Partners.

Williams will continue to supply the Geismar plant with feedstock via its ethane pipeline system in the Gulf Coast area. Williams owns an 88.46% stake in the Geismar plant. Williams Partners Chief Executive Officer Alan Armstrong said the move would help "reduce our commodity margin exposure and secure our fee-based Gulf Coast transportation business." Williams had previously put a potential $2 billion expansion of the plant on hold, opening the way for possible project activity for NOVA.

The 1.95 billion-pound-per-year ethylene unit at the Geismar facility suffered an unplanned outage on March 12 due to electrical problems caused by an animal getting into a power source. Restart activities were set to begin April 17, with expectations to have the unit operational by April 19. For more information, view Industrial Info's offline event report.

The transaction confirms NOVA Chemicals' move into the Gulf Coast region, which it began with a joint venture with Total SA (NYSE:TOT) (Paris, France) for the $1.6 billion grassroot ethane cracker in Port Arthur, Texas. The cracker will produce approximately 1 million tons per year of ethylene and is planned to kick off this summer, taking about three and half years to complete. Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (NYSE:CBI) (The Hague, Netherlands) is acting as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm on the project. For more information, see Industrial Info's project reports on the cracker and the accompanying utilities at the site.

In Canada, the company is planning a $1 billion polyethylene unit addition at its Saint Clair plant in Ontario. The company is working with design engineering firm Worley Parsons for preliminary design on an estimated 470,000 metric-ton-per-year polyethylene unit. The company is expected to provide a final investment decision this summer for the project, which could begin construction in summer 2018. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

By keeping its transmission contract with the plant, Williams continues to streamline its operations into its core pipeline transportation business. Among the largest Williams Partners projects being tracked by Industrial Info is the Atlantic Sunrise grassroot natural gas pipeline expansion in the northeast U.S. The project is designed to deliver 1.7 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales to markets in the Mid-Atlantic and southeastern states. The project was one of the final ones approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) before it lost its quorum on Commissioner Norman Bay's resignation. For more information, see February 7, 2017, article - Natural Gas Pipeline Projects Gain Last-Minute Approvals by FERC. For more information, see Industrial Info's project reports on the northern and southern expansion projects.

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