ExxonMobil US Texas cracker completion moved to early 2018

HOUSTON (ICIS)–ExxonMobil’s new 1.5m tonnes/year ethane cracker in Baytown, Texas will be mechanically complete in early 2018 and producing ethylene by mid-2018, an executive with the US-based producer said on Friday.

ExxonMobil had previously publicly said that that completion of the cracker would take place by the end of 2017.

Construction on the cracker had been halted during and immediately after Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas Gulf coast, said Jeff Woodbury, vice president of investor relations and secretary. He made his comments during ExxonMobil’s Q3 2017 earnings call.

Woodbury confirmed last week’s announcement of start-up of one of ExxonMobil’s two new metallocene polyethylene (PE) lines in Mont Belvieu, Texas, with the other “starting up now”. Each line will have a nameplate capacity of 650,000 tonnes/year.

“We have started generating a revenue stream for that product,” the executive said.

The Baytown cracker will feed into the Mont Belvieu PE lines.