Olefins

At least one person was killed and dozens were injured, some seriously, in an an explosion and fire at the Williams Geismar Olefins plant in Ascension Parish north of New Orleans early Thursday morning.

FERC Tuesday approved PetroLogistics Natural Gas Storage LLC’s proposal to expand the capacity of its existing storage facility in southern Louisiana by approximately 65%.

Williams Olefins LLC has awarded CB&I a $300 million contract for expansion of ethylene production capacity in Geismer, LA (see Shale Daily, Sept. 21, 2011). The award includes the license and basic engineering for the ethylene technology, the supply of the cracking furnaces and engineering, procurement, and construction of the expansion. Plant capacity is expected to be increased from 1.35 to 1.95 billion pounds per year. “The petrochemicals market is re-emerging in the U.S. due to the abundance of lower-cost ethane feedstock, directly attributable to increased shale gas production,” said CB&I CEO Philip K. Asherman. Ethylene, mainly produced via steam cracking, is the primary building block for the chemical industry and is used to produce a variety of products including plastics, fibers and rubbers.

The Crosstex Energy companies have upsized their Cajun-Sibon natural gas liquids (NGL) Louisiana-Texas pipeline extension project and plan to have it in service during the first half of 2013, Crosstex Energy LP and Crosstex Energy Inc. said Wednesday.

After hinting for months that going big was the only way to accommodate excess ethane supplies in the Marcellus Shale, Williams on Tuesday proposed to build a large-scale natural gas processing and ethane project that would traverse the rich gas/dry gas divide in Pennsylvania.