Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP (CPChem) has received the go-ahead from its board of directors to proceed with its US Gulf Coast (USGC) Petrochemicals Project, which was announced in 2011.

The ethane cracker will be built at CPChem’s Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown, TX, and two polyethylene units will be built at a site in Old Ocean, TX, near CPChem’s Sweeny plant (see Daily GPI, May 1, 2012). The USGC Petrochemicals Project is expected to begin construction in early 2014 and create about 400 long-term direct jobs and 10,000 engineering and construction jobs.

The company has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to a joint venture of JGC (USA) Inc. and Fluor Enterprises Inc. for the 1.5 million metric ton/year (3.3 billion pounds/year) ethane cracker portion of the project. It also awarded an EPC contract to Gulf Coast Partners, a partnership of Technip USA Inc. and Zachry Industrial Inc., for the project’s two polyethylene facilities, each with an annual capacity of 500,000 metric tons (1.1 billion pounds).

A CPChem spokesperson would not disclose information about projected natural gas consumption of the facilities or what pipelines might service them.

“We are able to realize this important milestone thanks to continued strong growth in demand for our products, shale resource development in the United States, and the tremendous support of our owners.” said CPChem CEO Pete Cella.

The polyethylene units will be capable of producing a wide variety of high and linear low density polyethylene products including bimodal and metallocene-based polyethylene polymers. The facilities will incorporate CPChem’s metallocene technology and proprietary Advanced Dual Loop bimodal technology. The units will also enable growth of the company’s blow molding, injection molding and film grades business.

In August, CPChem said the company had received the cracker’s Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas permit and the required Texas Commission on Environmental Quality air permits (see Daily GPI, Aug. 16).

Woodlands, TX-based CPChem is a 50-50 venture of Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips. The companies began a feasibility study of their Gulf Coast project in March 2011 (see Daily GPI, Dec. 15, 2011).