MOSCOW (MRC) -- Next Wave Energy Partners (Houston, Texas) has decided to go forward with plans to build an ethylene-based alkylate plant in Pasadena, Texas, on the Houston Ship Channel, with completion slated for mid-2022, reported Chemweek.
The facility will have capacity to produce 28,000 bbl/day of alkylate, a gasoline blending component, while consuming over 1.2 billion lbs/year (540,000 metric tons/year) of ethylene feedstock, says New Wave.
"By starting with a chemically pure feedstock and thereby avoiding the feedstock constraints typically found in refinery alkylation, our facility will produce one of the highest-quality alkylate products available in North America, which is particularly attractive for blending the cleaner-burning gasoline required by the high performance engines of today and tomorrow," says Patrick Diamond, executive chairman of New Wave.
New Wave says the Pasadena facility has been designed for expansion. "Working with potential suppliers and offtake partners, we have already commenced engineering for a second alkylation unit at our Pasadena site to capitalize on incremental demand for our services," says Michael Bloesch, president and CEO. "We believe our premier location near the Houston Ship Channel offers our customers unsurpassed connectivity to feedstock supply, product offtake and gasoline blending and distribution infrastructure."
Alkylate from the facility will be delivered by direct-connection pipeline to Pasadena blending terminals with dock access to the Houston Ship Channel and connections to major refined product distribution pipelines, says Next Wave.
Ethylene is also a feedstock for the production of polyethylene (PE).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,589,580 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased.
We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in March 2019, Bayport Polymers LLC (Baystar), the 50/50 joint venture owned by Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA, Inc. (TPRI) and Novealis Holdings LLC - itself a joint venture co-owned by Borealis AG and NOVA Chemicals Inc. - held its official groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a new 625,000 metric ton-per-year Borstar polyethylene unit at its production site in Pasadena, Texas, with an anticipated start-up in 2021.
MRC