MOSCOW (MRC) -- WR Grace & Co. today announced that Advanced Refining Technologies (ART), the company’s joint venture with Chevron, will invest approximately USD135 million to build a residue hydroprocessing catalyst plant and additional alumina capacity at the existing Grace manufacturing facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Construction is expected to begin in late 2015 with completion anticipated in 2018.
An ever-increasing global push for bottom-of-the-barrel upgrading is leading to a significant increase in investment by refiners for fixed bed resid hydrotreating and ebullating bed resid hydrocracking process technologies. The new ART plant will be designed to meet the increased catalyst requirements for these units, which are licensed and already under construction.
"This will be a world-class, world-scale catalysts plant that is responding to strong global demand for ART’s industry-leading products for residue upgrading, capitalizing on the success of our licensing partner, Chevron Lummus Global," said Fred Festa, Grace CEO.
"We are pleased that this investment with Grace will keep ART and Chevron at the forefront of hydroprocessing catalysis and technology," added Mike Wirth, Chevron's executive vice president of downstream and chemicals.
One of the largest refining catalysts plants in the world, Lake Charles represents a significant portion of Grace's refining catalyst manufacturing capacity. Operating in Southwest Louisiana since 1953, the Lake Charles facility supplies major refiners around the globe.
The 120-acre site consists of four major operations producing fluid cracking catalysts, hydroprocessing catalysts, and other intermediates.
Over the past six years, Grace has made capital investments of over USD100 million at the Lake Charles facility. This includes an expansion to enable increased production of specialty aluminas, a key raw material in fluid cracking and hydroprocessing catalysts, and a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant.
Chevron Phillips Chemical has recently announced the construction of a world-scale ethylene cracker in Baytown, Texas, two world-scale polyethylene reactors in Old Ocean, Texas and the start-up of the world’s largest 1-hexene facility in Baytown. The 1-hexene plant, capable of producing up to 250,000 tpy, is co-located with this expansion project at the Cedar Bayou plant. Chevron says the two plants will enjoy synergies as they both share the same infrastructure and workforce talent.
Chevron Phillips Chemica, headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas (north of Houston), US,l is one of the world’s top producers of olefins and polyolefins and a leading supplier of aromatics, alpha olefins, styrenics, specialty chemicals, piping, and proprietary plastics. Chevron and Phillips 66 each own 50% of Chevron Phillips Chemical.
MRC