Dow Chemical Co. has taken the next step forward to build a planned world-class ethylene facility in Freeport, TX, and is seeking a federal air emissions permit for the proposed plant.

The $1.7 billion facility, which would be Dow’s largest in the world, could open its doors in 2017, the company said. Dow has had the massive project on the drawing board since early 2011 (see Shale Daily, April 20; April 25, 2011). In its application to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Midland, MI-based company said construction is scheduled to begin in January 2014.

The facility would have capacity to make 1.5 million tons of ethylene a year, according to Dow, which is North America’s largest consumer of propylene and the largest producer of ethylene. The company plans to invest a total of $4 billion in Texas and Louisiana through 2017 to boost earnings by at least $2 billion a year once the new ethylene plant begins operations.

Dow’s news follows by one week South Africa’s Sasol Ltd.’s announcement to build the second largest gas-to-liquids plant in the world in Westlake, LA, at a cost of up to $21 billion (see Shale Daily, Dec. 4).

Dow executives have been touting many U.S. expansions that are coming because and in support of cheap U.S. natural gas. Earlier this month CEO Andrew Liveris said the company’s comprehensive plan to connect domestic businesses with “cost-advantaged feedstocks” from unconventional gas was moving forward and on track to deliver long-term competitive advantages for the worldwide operations (see Shale Daily,Dec. 5). Last week he also criticized a recent Department of Energy-sponsored study that supports some liquefied natural gas exports, calling the report “flawed, misleading and based on outdated, inaccurate and incomplete economic data” (see Shale Daily, Dec. 10).

Dow’s George Biltz, vice president of energy and climate change division, told NGI’s Shale Daily in October that the company had identified more than 90 capital investment projects — a combined investment of about $80 billion — that were being planned nationwide, all of which were made possible by abundant domestic gas supplies (see Shale Daily, Oct. 29).

When Dow announced its Gulf Coast expansion plans last year, it also signed a memorandum of understanding with a subsidiary of Range Resources Corp. for Range to deliver ethane supplies from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania to existing chemical operations in Louisiana. Officials said they also had ethane and propane supply contracts for Eagle Ford Shale gas and were pursuing several other supply agreements.

Dow’s Freeport facility is not the only chemicals facility on the drawing board for the Gulf Coast region. In late April Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP selected a site near Old Ocean, TX, for two proposed polyethylene plants that would have annual capacity of 500,000 metric tons or 1.1 billion pounds. It also is expanding natural gas liquids fractionation capacity at the Old Ocean site and is expanding olefins output at a new 1-hexene facility at its Cedar Bayou Chemical Complex in Baytown, TX (see Shale Daily, April 4; March 27).

ExxonMobil Corp. in September said it would spend $200 million to expand two chemical and lubricant plants in Baton Rouge and Port Allen, LA, which were to begin by the end of this year. When construction is completed in 2017, 45 full-time jobs would be added to the integrated ExxonMobil facilities, which now employ 2,600. The Baton Rouge plant would be the world’s largest producer of finished lubricants, which are used in motor oils, gear oils and greases, as well as specialized lubricants for aviation, marine and industrial applications. The Port Allen site would include a state-of-the-art blending center.

Motley Fool’s Arjun Sreekumar in a recent note said there is a “sense of irony” that has come from the abundant domestic natural gas supplies now that lower costs have made them more attractive. A little more than five years ago, “natural gas was a major impediment to the U.S. chemical industry. Now it’s a lifesaver.” In the mid-2000s when gas and natural gas liquids prices spiked, many domestic chemical plants “lost competitiveness and were forced to idle their plants.”

Today’s low prices have provided U.S. manufacturers ” with a significant competitive advantage over their foreign counterparts,” wrote Sreekumar. “Going forward, low natural gas prices should continue to provide a strong incentive for domestic manufacturers to relocate facilities that were previously shipped offshore back to the United States.”