Cancun, Mexico — LyondellBasell's Texas-based expansion projects for propylene oxide/tertiary butyl alcohol and high-density polyethylene are progressing on schedule, with the latter expected online in 2019, CEO Bob Patel said Sunday at the 38th Latin Amerian Petrochemical Association's annual meeting in Cancun.
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Register NowThe 500,000 mt/year HDPE line at the company's La Porte complex is expected online by mid-2019, Patel said. It will be the first to utilize LyondellBasell's proprietary Hyperzone technology.
The project is part of LyondellBasell's $3-$5 billion of investments along the U.S. Gulf Coast to tap into advantaged feedstock. These investments have also included ethylene expansions projects at its La Porte, Channelview and Corpus Christi sites in Texas.
US PE production is expected to grow by 6.4 million mt/year from 2017-2019, and 55% of this total is already operational, per S&P Global Platts estimates.
Also in Channelview, LyondellBasell expects to bring online the world's largest PO/TBA by 2021, Patel said.
The $2.4 billion project, which broke ground in August, will produce 470,000 mt/year of PO and 1 million mt/year of TBA. An associated ethers plant, which will convert TBA to oxyfuels, will be built at the company's Bayport complex in Pasadena, Texas.
PO is used to make bedding, furniture, carpeting, coatings, building materials and adhesives, while TBA is converted into methyl tertiary butyl ether and ethyl tertiary butyl ether. Both MTBE and ETBE are high-octane gasoline components.
LyondellBasell estimates global demand for urethanes to grow by 4-5% over the next five years. The global TBA market is expected to increase by 3% annually over the next 10 years, driven by demand in Asia Pacific and Latin America, per company estimates.
--Bernardo Fallas, bernardo.fallas@spglobal.com
--Edited by Liz Thang, elizabeth.thang@spglobal.com