Petrochemicals are widely used for many commercial purposes and are mainly obtained from petroleum and natural gas. It can also be derived from other sources such as vegetable products, coke and coal. These days, they are used in many daily use products such as soaps and detergents, solvent, flooring material, automobiles, clothing, agriculture and others. Ethylene, benzene, propylene, butylenes, toluene, and xylene are some of the common petrochemical products which get combined with other materials to produce new products. Petrochemical is playing a very important role for the overall economic growth and for the development and growth of the manufacturing sector.
ExxonMobil Corp announced that they are going to expand their Baytown, Texas chemical plant with the investment of USD 2 billion. This Baytown facility is one of the largest petrochemical complex which is located along with the Houstan ship channel in 3400 acre area. This investment is the part of the company’s 2017 Growing the Gulf initiative, whose main was to expand and increase the manufacturing facilities in U.S. Gulf coast.
According to Darren W. Woods, ExxonMobile Chairman and Chief Executive Office ‘This investment will help them to support their growth plans and will also create many high- paying jobs’. The company also added that with their large investment in Permian Basin to increase the oil production, they are somewhere making a very beneficial and significant contribution in the U.S. economy. They also commissioned Ernst and Young so that they can analyze that after the launch of Growing the Gulf initiative in 2017, how much company has contributed in supporting the country economy and it was found that the company has provided more than 177,000 jobs across country and contributed more than 43 billion in the economy activities.
This Baytown expansion will help the company to limited the cost of the increasing Permian Basin production and also help them to provide high quality products which are produced at Gulf coast refining and chemical facilities. Woods also added that in next 20 years there will be more demand for chemicals is going to be greater than GDP growth and energy demand growth.
It is expected that the expansion is going to start in 2022 and will include a Vistamaxx performance polymer unit which will produce products with high softness, elasticity, flexibility and will also improve the performance of the product. This new unit will have the ability to produce 350,000 tons of linear alpha olefins annually.
Exxonmobil’s Baytown facility is one of the most advanced and developed petrochemical and refining complex which consist of facilities such as plastic plant, global technology center, chemical plant, refinery and olefins plants.
