LyondellBasell (Houston, Texas / USA; www.lyondellbasell.com) has completed its ethylene expansion at Corpus Christi, Texas, USA (see Plasteurope.com of 28.08.2015). The project raised capacity at the site from 770,000 t/y to a total of 1.13m t/y and marks the completion of the company's multi-year programme to increase ethylene capacity in the US by 907,000 t/y.

"By expanding ethylene capacity in the US through debottlenecks rather than long and costly greenfield developments, we quickly added substantial capacity for significantly less than the cost of a new plant," said Bob Patel, CEO and chairman of the management board.

Since 2012, the Houston-headquartered company has invested around USD 2 bn in expansion projects on the US Gulf Coast. These include an additional combined 54,000 t/y for ethylene and PE at Clinton, Iowa and Morris, Illinois in 2012; 70,000 t/y extra butadiene at Wesseling / Germany and 113,000 t/y more methanol at Channelview, Texas / USA in 2013; increases of 363,000 t/y and 100,000 t/y for ethylene and PE at La Porte and Matagorda in Texas, respectively, in 2014; a 113,000 t/y hike in ethylene output at Channelview in 2015; and lastly the Corpus Christi ethylene project.

LyondellBasell said it is planning to invest a further USD 3 bn in the region. Last September, the company announced it would build an HDPE plant in La Porte, Texas, which will be the first to use its new and proprietary “Hyperzone” technology (see Plasteurope.com of 14.09.2016). Construction is scheduled to start early this year and start-up is planned for 2019. Plans to develop a world-scale propylene oxide/tertiary butyl alcohol (PO/TBA) plant at Channelview are also progressing, LyondellBasell said.