MOSCOW (MRC) -- Ineos confirmed that it has completed successful operational trials on the second manufacturing unit (Train 2) of its enormous gas cracker at Grangemouth, Scotland, eight years after being mothballed, reported GV.
Train 2 has undergone rigorous recommissioning trials to prepare for the arrival of US shale gas ethane. The first deliveries of US shale gas are expected to arrive by ship at Grangemouth in the autumn.
In 2008, the KG ethylene cracker was unable to operate at full capacity and Ineos was left with no option but to close the second manufacturing unit.
The US ethane will be used as a supplementary feed for the KG ethylene plant at a time when North Sea supplies are dwindling and will allow the plant to run at increased rates.
According to Gordon Milne, Ineos Grangemouth Operations Director, "We are one of the few businesses in Scotland investing and growing our business on such a scale as this. With the successful completion of the Train 2 trial we are now in great shape to receive shale gas from the US and to finally run the Grangemouth plant at full rates."
"All the parts of the jigsaw are finally coming together and Grangemouth will soon be back in the premier league of European petrochemical plants. INEOS is one of very few companies with the imagination and skill to vision and deliver a project of this size and complexity."
John McNally, CEO Ineos Grangemouth says, "Bringing the site back into profitability is the best way to secure our future here in Scotland. We know that ethane from US shale gas has transformed US manufacturing and we are now a step closer to seeing this advantage being brought to here to Grangemouth."
We remind that, as MRC informed before, on 23 March 2016, Ineos received its first US shale gas shipment into Rafnes, Norway. Ineos said this is the first US shale gas shipped to Europe represents the culmination of a long-term investment by Ineos.
INEOS Group Limited is a privately owned multinational chemicals company consisting of 15 standalone business units, headquartered in Rolle, Switzerland and with its registered office in Lyndhurst, United Kingdom. It is the fourth largest chemicals company in the world measured by revenues (after BASF, Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell) and the largest privately owned company in the United Kingdom.
MRC