Construction of the third polyethylene plant at the Bayport, Texas / USA site of joint venture Bayport Polymers has begun – see Plasteurope.com of 19.10.2018. At the end of February 2019, the JV partners – Total Petrochemicals and Refining USA (Houston, Texas; www.totalpetrochemicalsrefiningusa.com), Borealis (Vienna / Austria; www.borealisgroup.com) and Nova Chemicals (Calgary, Alberta / Canada; www.novachemicals.com) – held the official groundbreaking ceremony for construction of the 625,000 t/y PE line.

The line will use Borealis' “Borstar” technology and is scheduled to start operations in 2021. Bayport Polymers' PE capacity at the site will rise to about 1.1m t/y. McDermott (Houston; www.mcdermott.com) is responsible for the engineering, procurement and construction of the unit, with around 1,750 jobs to be created during the construction phase.

In Port Arthur, Texas, the JV started construction of an ethane cracker with a production capacity of 1m t/y of ethylene in summer 2018. It is scheduled to begin operations in 2020 and will supply the existing and planned PE lines – see Plasteurope.com of 13.06.2018.