Exxon, Sabic Choose Texas for Petchem Project
ExxonMobil and Saudi state petrochemical group Sabic announced April 19 the selection of a coastal site in Texas for a potential joint petchem complex.
The proposed multi-billion dollar investment would include a world-scale new ethane steam cracker at San Patricio County, Texas capable of producing 1.8mn metric tons of ethylene per year, which would feed a monoethylene glycol unit and two polyethylene units.
Ethane is found in natural gas production at the wellhead in concentrations of between 1% and 6% by content.
The proposed project, one of 11 ExxonMobil announced as part of its 10-year, $20bn 'Growing the Gulf' initiative out to at least 202, which it expects to generate more than $22bn in economic output during construction, and more than $50bn in economic output during the first six years of operations.
Photo credit: Sabic
With site selection completed, ExxonMobil and Sabic will now apply for the necessary air and wastewater permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; each company will then make a final decision on the investment after the required permits have been granted.
One of several petchem investments pegged to US shale gas
Neither said how soon that might be. However Texas Governor Greg Abbott showed his support for the project: “Texas has shown the business world that our state is the place where innovation and ingenuity thrive." His predecessor in the job is now US Energy Secretary Rick Perry. This is one of a series of investments, planned and actual, spurred by cheap feedstock arising from the US shale gas boom.
Last month France's Total and subsidiaries of Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala-IPIC said they plan to build a new 1mn metric ton/yr ethane steam cracker, as well as a new polyethylene unit on the US Gulf Coast at a cost of $1.7bn.
But the feedstock isn't always in the Gulf region and doesn't always stay in the US. In mid-2016 Shell took a final investment decision to build a major petchem complex in Pennsylvania, citing cheap ethane availability from profilic local US shale gas production. Last week Total said that "competitively priced propane feedstock ... due to the shale gas revolution in the US" led it to expand its joint petrochemical venture in South Korea with local Hanwha.
Mark Smedley