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Dow reports the start-up of an ethylene facility

Published by , Assistant Editor
Hydrocarbon Engineering,


DowDuPont Materials Science, the business division of DowDuPont to be named Dow, announced the start-up of its new integrated ethylene production facility and its new ELITETM enhanced polyethylene production facility, both in Freeport, Texas, US. These two key milestones allow Dow to capture benefits from increasing supplies of US shale gas to deliver differentiated downstream solutions in its core market verticals.

Both units will continue to ramp up through 3Q17 and are expected to reach full rates in 4Q17.

The ethylene production facility has an initial nameplate capacity of 1.5 million t. As part of the company’s growth investments, the unit is set to expand to 2 million t, making it the largest ethylene facility. Measured by total investment per tonne of capacity, this new ethylene unit represents the least capital-intensive ethylene investment in the region.

The 400 000 t ELITE polyethylene production unit is the first of four new derivative units at Dow’s manufacturing sites in Texas and Louisiana. Dow’s polyethylene resins are versatile with high performance attributes.

In addition to supporting Dow’s near-term capacity additions, the ethylene facility will also support further planned debottlenecks to unlock additional polyethylene capacity as well as a new world-scale polyethylene unit as part of the company’s comprehensive growth investments. The remaining derivative assets to come online in the US Gulf Coast include:

  • Specialty low density polyethylene for industrial and supply chain packaging applications, expected to startup later this year.
  • NORDELTM metallocene EPDM to deliver solutions for higher margin applications for infrastructure and consumer durables end-markets, expected to start-up in early 2018.
  • Bi-modal gas phase de-bottleneck to enable more offerings for high performance pipe and fitting applications, as well as the cap and closure market, to follow later in 2018.
  • High melt index specialty and conventional polyolefin elastomers for high performance flexible packaging end-markets, expected to come online in late 2018.
  • Polyethylene unit based on Dow’s proprietary Solution Process technology to meet demand, expected to come online by 2022.

“This is a monumental moment for Dow as it advances its global growth strategy by fully deploying our unmatched molecular and physical integration,” said Andrew Liveris, executive chairman of DowDuPont, and chairman and CEO of Dow. “These facilities are an integral part of Dow’s investments on the US Gulf Coast to meet increasing consumer-led demand in our core market verticals of packaging, infrastructure and consumer care, and will enable our next level of earnings and cash flow growth.”

“As the company ramps up these units to full production, it continues to solidify its early-mover advantage while significantly increasing its integration and growing US production capacity,” said Jim Fitterling, COO for DowDuPont Materials Science. “Dow’s new ethylene facility provides a solid, capital-efficient base in this attractive, feedstock-advantaged region, which will continue to fuel the industry’s broadest and most differentiated derivatives slate.”

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/product-news/22092017/dow-reports-the-start-up-of-an-ethylene-facility/

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