Ineos Oligomers on May 16, 2016 confirmed it had made a Final Investment Decision (FID) to build a new world scale linear alpha olefin (LAO) unit at the Ineos site at Chocolate Bayou, Texas.  The LAO unit capacity will be 420,000 metric tonnes per annum (tpa), 20 percent larger than when the project was originally announced.

The new unit represents a major step forward in the ambitious growth plans for the LAO business, complementing existing units in Joffre, Alberta, Canada and Feluy, Belgium respectively. Once the unit comes on-stream in November 2018, the global LAO production capacity of Ineos Oligomers will reach approximately one million metric tonnes per annum.
 
“The new unit will be based on our own proprietary and differentiated Ineos Oligomers broad-based LAO technology. Therefore, the plant’s product distribution and product specifications will be very familiar to our customers. In addition, the unit will also include process technology improvements that will also reduce our variable costs. We continue to believe our market and technology focus, combined with our access to USGC ethylene economics, make this a very attractive opportunity.  Hence, our ultimate decision to build a unit larger than the 350 ktpa originally envisioned and fully exploit available economies of scale,” stated Joe Walton, Ineos Oligomers business director.

Linear alpha olefin serves key markets such as polyethylene (PE) co-monomers, polyalphaolefin (PAO) lubricants and drilling fluids. The new unit will be well placed to supply the significant new PE capacity being built on the Gulf Coast over the next several years. In addition, the unit will also provide the feedstock that will enable Ineos long term PAO capacity growth to support the demand for high performance synthetic lubricants. “For example, our new high viscosity PAO unit will come on-stream in 1Q2017 and engineering has begun on a new world scale low viscosity PAO train. Furthermore, our LAO drilling fluids can be readily exported to offshore fields in the Gulf Coast, Caribbean and Latin America.” added Walton.
 
The Chocolate Bayou site already has two ethylene crackers and offers ready access to the US Gulf Coast ethylene pipeline distribution network.

Source : business-standard.com