Total, partners authorize $1B Bayport plastics expansion
September 26, 2018
The French energy major Total and its partners said they will soon start construction on a new plastics plant at Total's Bayport campus near Pasadena, a project estimated to create more than 1,700 construction-related jobs.
The $1 billion project involves building a new plant to annually produce 625,000 metric tons - more than 1.3 billion pounds - of polyethylene, which is the world's most common plastic.
Total owns 50 percent of its new Bayport Polymers joint venture with its partners Nova Chemicals of Calgary, Alberta and Borealis of Vienna.
The expansion, which is expected to be completed in 2021, would more than double the Bayport campus' existing polyethylene production of about 400,000 metric tons a year.
The companies already are building a new ethane cracker plant in Port Arthur, which processes ethane, a natural gas liquid, into ethylene, which is the primary building block of most plastics. The ethylene would then be piped to Bayport to be manufactured into plastics.
The Bayport campus is nearly adjacent to the Port of Houston's Bayport Container Terminal, which is exporting much of the plastic to developing markets in Asia and elsewhere.
The ethane cracker project costs nearly $2 billion.
Houston-based McDermott International will lead the engineering and construction, employing about 1,750 people during the construction process.
Bernard Pinatel, president of Total refining and chemicals, said the project is designed to take advantage of the cheap and abundant ethane feedstock in Texas shale and integrating the entire manufacturing process.