Exxon Mobil plans another Baytown move
Exxon Mobil looks to add on a plastics processing plant
Exxon Mobil just started up a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant at its Baytown complex. Now, it’s considering another expansion there as the boom keeps on booming.
Exxon Mobil Corp. just started up a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant at its Baytown complex. Now it’s considering another expansion there as the region’s petrochemical boom keeps on booming.
The proposed expansion, estimated at a cost of $1.9 billion, would add a two-unit plastics processing plant on the north side of the sprawling Baytown complex, according to a tax abatement application. The company said in the application that the project — which it says is still being evaluated — would create 25 permanent jobs at a salary of $62,971.
The expansion plans were detailed in an application for Chapter 313 tax exemptions with the Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District. Chapter 313 tax exemptions can be granted by school districts for qualifying projects.
Exxon Mobil did not respond to
a request for comment.
The expansion proposal comes just a few weeks after Exxon Mobil started up a plant that includes a cracker, which processes the natural gas liquid ethane into ethylene, the primary feedstock for most plastics. The expansion, which raises ethylene production capacity by 1.5 million metric tons a year, was part of a $6 billion investment that also expanded Exxon Mobil’s plastics plant in Mont Belvieu. That project added about 1.3 million tons of production capacity for making polyethylene, the world's most common plastic.
The region’s petrochemical industry has grown quickly in recent years as the surge in shale drilling has yielded vast amounts of natural gas liquids, such as ethane, which are byproducts of oil and gas operations. The natural gas liquids used as feedstocks for a variety of chemical products, including plastics.
On Wednesday, the Houston chemical maker LyondellBasell began construction on a $2.4 billion plant in Channelview that will produce propylene oxide and tertiary butyl alcohol — chemicals used in either polyurethane foam or high-octane gasoline. The plant, slated for completion in 2021, would be the largest of its kind in the world.
Over the past several years, chemical and energy companies have poured an estimated $130 billion into the Gulf Coast, lured by the abundant, cheap raw materials flowing from Texas shale fields. Exxon Mobil is also partnering with Saudi Arabia's governmentowned Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corp. or SABIC to build a $10 billion chemicals and plastics complex north of Corpus Christi.