MOSCOW (MRC) -- Motiva Enterprises has signed an agreement to buy the Flint Hills Resources' cracker and chemical plant adjacent to its Port Arthur, Texas, oil refinery, kicking off a push into petrochemicals, reported Reuters.
Motiva, the US refining arm of Saudi Aramco, plans to operate the cracker while it builds three giant petrochemical units within its Port Arthur complex as part of an USD18 billion expansion of operations along the US Gulf Coast, said three sources familiar with the agreement.
Motiva said it expects to deal to close by late 2019.
The purchase price was not disclosed. Flint Hills acquired the plant from Huntsman Corp in 2007 for USD770 million.
The Flint Hills plant operates a 1.57 billion-pound-per-year ethylene cracker, a unit producing nylon component cyclohexane, and a network of pipelines and storage caverns, the sources said. Ethylene is a building block for plastics.
Motiva has been investing heavily in the Port Arthur area since becoming the sole owner of the 607,000 bpd refinery, after the 2017 break-up of a partnership with Royal Dutch Shell Plc that created Motiva.
In April, Houston-based Motiva announced it would refurbish two empty, historic buildings in downtown Port Arthur for use as offices. It also has filed documents with the state to build a USD5 billion steam cracker that would produce ethylene.
The sources said the Flint Hills chemical plant buys petrochemical feedstock from Motiva’s refinery, the largest in the United States.
The acquisition comes as the market for chemicals is growing faster than for gasoline and other refined products.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polyprolypele (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,255,800 tonnes in the first seven months of 2019, up by 9% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, the estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 796,120 tonnes in January-July 2019, up by 11% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.
Motiva Enterprises, LLC, is a fully owned affiliate of Saudi Refining Inc. and headquartered in Houston, Texas, United States with revenue of USD24 billion. Previously, it was a 50–50 joint venture between Shell Oil Company (the wholly owned American subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell) and Saudi Refining Inc. (controlled by Saudi Aramco).
MRC