Chevron Phillips Chemical (CPChem, The Woodlands, Texas / USA; www.cpchem.com) is moving to expand its ethylene production by over 90,000 t/y by adding a tenth furnace at its Sweeny complex in Old Ocean, Texas. Construction is targeted to commence within the next quarter, with an anticipated start-up in 2014. The expansion is part of the company’s US Gulf Coast petrochemicals project, which is proceeding on track and is expected to be commissioned in 2017.

In May 2012, the company announced that it was going to build two polyethylene lines at Sweeny with an estimated capacity of 500,000 t/y each and an ethane cracker at its Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown, Texas as part of the project – see Plasteurope.com from 07.05.2012.

Dave Smith, olefins & natural gas liquids vice president at CPChem, commented, “The [new] furnace will provide additional ethylene supply to meet the growing global demand...and provide additional supply prior to starting up our proposed petrochemicals project in 2017.”

According to Plasteurope.com's database, Polyglobe (www.polyglobe.net), CPChem's Ethylene Unit 33 with 9 lines at its Sweeny cracker had a capacity of 907,000 t/y of light feed base material. The company has two additional crackers at Sweeny which produce almost 1m t/y of C2 and over 500,000 t/y of C3.