Indorama Ventures Olefins has started commercial operations at its ethane cracker in Westlake.
The company, an indirect subsidiary of Thailand’s Indorama Ventures PCL in Bangkok, announced the project to renovate and restart a dormant ethane cracker just west of Lake Charles back in September 2015.
The 440,000 tons per year cracker began commercial operation on Jan. 31, IVP said in an announcement last week. To date, the restarted plant already has achieved an operating rate of more than 80%, said Tony Barre, IVO’s site director.
Integrated with U.S. Gulf Coast ethylene pipeline infrastructure, the Westlake plant will provide long-term captive ethylene supplies to Indorama Ventures Oxide and Glycols’s plant in Clear Lake, Texas, as well as IVL’s recently acquired integrated ethylene oxide-propylene oxide and derivatives assets in Port Neches, Texas, which the operator completed purchase of from Huntsman Corp. in early January, according to an IVL filing with the Stock Exchange of Thailand on Jan. 6.
