Operations Start at New Indorama Cracker in Louisiana

Petrochemical firm Indorama Public Ventures Company Limited (IVL) said Monday that its new olefins gas cracker at the Indorama Ventures Olefins (IVOL) facility in Westlake, LA became operational this January 31. 

“This is a significant milestone for IVL and a strategic step forward in expanding our North American portfolio and footprint,” Dilip Kumar Agarwal, chief executive officer of PET and Integrated Oxides and Derivatives at Indorama Ventures, said in a company press release. “This new plant is very strategic to the continued growth of IVL’s Integrated Oxides and Derivatives segment, in-line with the company’s strategy.”

Integrated into the U.S. Gulf Coast ethylene pipeline infrastructure, the Westlake site is capable of manufacturing 440 kt/yr (KTA) of ethylene. The company said ethylene produced at the new site will support its Indorama Ventures Oxide and Glycols (IVOG) plant in Clear Lake, TX and its integrated PO and EO assets located in Port Neches, TX.

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“I am very proud of the achievements of our IVOL operating team, who have safely achieved commercial operations and the plant has already achieved an operating rate of over 80%,” said Tony Barre, site director of Indorama Ventures Olefins LLC, in a statement. 

Elsewhere in the Gulf Coast, Industrial gases firm Air Products announced plans this month to invest $500 million to build, own and operate (BOO) a new steam methane reformer (SMR) for hydrogen production and an air separation unit (ASU) for nitrogen in the U.S. to support a new world-scale ammonia production plant in Texas City, TX operated by Gulf Coast Ammonia (GCA).

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