As the US re-emerges as a petrochemical player thanks to cheap shale gas, a number of new plants have already been started up or are currently in the process of being built. But the feedstock revolution is not only giving birth to new facilities. On 31 December 2012, Bloomberg reports, US chemical giant Dow (Midland, Michigan; www.dow.com) restarted its “Olefins 2” plant in Hahnville, Louisiana / USA. The facility had lain idle for almost four years after Dow decided to pull the plug on it in mid-2009 (see Plasteurope.com of 07.07.2009).

Dow had previously announced a number of plans to take advantage of the cheaper feedstock and revive its US production – for more details, see also Plasteurope.com of 28.04.2011. Aside from restarting the Hahnville facility, which according to Plasteurope.com’s Polyglobe capacity database (www.polyglobe.net) can turn out 390,000 t/y of ethylene, the group also is building a new mega cracker in Freeport, Texas – see Plasteurope.com of 25.04.2012 – which is due for start-up in 2017.