Dow Chemical has completed construction on a giant ethane cracker plant it calls the “crown jewel” of its $6 billion expansion plans in the Gulf Coast region.
Dow says the “world-scale production unit, with a nameplate capacity of 1.5 million metric tons…is designed to strengthen the competitiveness of its downstream consumer-led businesses.”
The cracker plant will produce ethylene, one of the primary building blocks of most plastics.
Like many new construction projects in the Gulf Coast area and in Texas specifically, the plant will take advantage of low-cost and abundant natural gas in the region.
Dow’s plant is one of many new ethane cracker plants in the works in Texas. France-based Total just announced this week that it plans to invest $1.7 billion in a petrochemical joint venture in Texas that will include an ethane steam cracker plant in Port Arthur. That project is expected to create at least 1,500 local jobs and start in 2020.
Meanwhile, Occidental Petroleum, ExxonMobil and Chevron Phillips Chemical are all in midst of building ethane cracker and other plastics plants in Texas.
Dow says its new ethylene plant will come online throughout this year and 2018.