Chevron Phillips Chemical has received board approval to execute the US Gulf Coast (USGC) Petrochemicals Project, first announced in March 2011. The US company has also awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to a joint venture between JGC (US) and Fluor Enterprises to execute the 1.5 million-tonne/year ethane cracker portion of the project. The company has also awarded an EPC contract to Gulf Coast Partners, a partnership between Technip USA and Zachry Industrial to execute the two new polyethylene (PE) facilities, each with a capacity of 500,000 tonnes/year.

“We remain in the first mover position as we take another critical step in executing a project that will benefit our customers, suppliers, local communities and existing and future employees,” said Pete Cella, President/CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical. “We are able to realise this important milestone thanks to continued strong growth in demand for our products, shale resource development in the United States, and the tremendous support of our owners.”

The world-scale PE units will be capable of producing a wide variety of high and LDPE products including bimodal and metallocene-based PE polymers. These facilities will incorporate CP Chemical’s leading edge metallocene technology and proprietary Advanced Dual Loop bimodal technology.

In addition to the bimodal and linear low density products, the flexibility of these units will allow for growth of current blow moulding, injection moulding and film grades offered by CP Chemical. Sold under the brand names of Marlex resins for rigid packaging and extrusion applications and Marflex resins for film and extrusion coating applications, the new production facilities will be complemented by expansion of CP Chemical’s Technical Service capability offering sustainable solutions in a wide variety of applications ranging from flexible packaging to high performance pressure pipe.

The ethane cracker will be built at CP Chemical’s Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown, Texas, and two PE units will be built at a site in Old Ocean, Texas, near the Sweeny plant. The project is expected to commence construction in early 2014 and create approximately 400 long-term direct jobs and 10,000 engineering and construction jobs. It will start up in 2017.