Chevron Phillips Chemical has completed mechanical completion of its Cedar Bayou ethane cracker in Baytown, Texas, and commissioning activities are under way, Kallanish Energy reports.
That is “a major milestone,” the company said last week, in a statement.
The plant is undergoing system checks and final certifications to ensure a safe and reliable startup and consistent, on-spec production, the company said.
“With the mechanical completion of Cedar Bayou’s ethane cracker, we are now on the cusp of completing the most transformative project in our company’s history,” said president and CEO Mark Lashier, in a statement.
The Baytown cracker, near Houston, is expected to produce at least 1.5 million metric tons of product annually.
The cracker will provide product for the company’s ethylene business and feedstock for its ethylene derivatives businesses.
The facility will produce product for the company’s ethylene fleet that now includes two new polyethylene units at Old Ocean, Texas. They came online last September.
The plants can produce a wide variety of high-quality Mariex polyethylene resins.
The cracker and the polyethylene plants are part of the company’s $6 billion U.S. Gulf Coast petrochemical project.
Heavy flooding from Hurricane Harvey delayed the cracker construction.
The company also reported it has purchased nearly 3,000 newly built rail cars and constructed a state-of-the-art storage-in-transition facility to ship polyethylene via rail to domestic customers and to ports for export.
