Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. (CPChem) LP announced Monday that it has selected a site near Old Ocean, TX, in Brazoria County, for two polyethylene facilities, part of the company’s U.S. Gulf Coast Petrochemicals Project.

“These polyethylene facilities would be the first ethylene derivative units to be constructed in Old Ocean and as such, they offer an exciting opportunity to our employees, the surrounding Brazoria County community, and those businesses that would service these new facilities,” said CEO Peter L. Cella. “In addition, constructing polyethylene infrastructure at Old Ocean better positions the location for potential future investments.”

Woodlands, TX-based CPChem — a 50-50 partnership jointly owned by Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips — launched a feasibility study over plans to build a “world-scale” ethane cracker and ethylene derivatives facilities in March 2011. When the company formally announced the project in December, it said it was also considering building the polyethylene plants at its existing Cedar Bayou facility in Baytown, TX (see Daily GPI, Dec. 15, 2011).

The two new polyethylene facilities are to have an annual capacity of 500,000 metric tons (1.1 billion pounds). The company said the plants would use its proprietary Loop Slurry process.

CPChem also announced that it had executed engineering and design agreements with Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. for the polypropylene facilities and with Shaw Energy & Chemicals to design another part of the Gulf Coast project, a 1.5 million metric tons/year (3.3 billion pounds/year) ethane cracker at Cedar Bayou.

“We continue to believe that synergy with our existing Gulf Coast operations, proximity to feedstock supply, and application of proprietary technologies uniquely positions our company to capitalize on the opportunity that development of abundant shale resources affords the United States, and in particular the Gulf Coast region,” Cella said. “This project would benefit our owners, employees, local communities, customers, and suppliers.”

CPChem said the entire Gulf Coast project is expected to create approximately 400 long-term direct jobs and 10,000 engineering and construction jobs. The project is expected to be completed in 2017.

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