KUALA LUMPUR: Lotte Chemical Titan Holding Bhd’s US-based joint-venture (JV) company, Lotte Chemical USA Corp (LC USA) has commercially started producing ethylene and mono ethylene glycol (MEG) last month.
In a statement today, the company said the large-scale petrochemical facility located in Lake Charles, Louisiana comprises two manufacturing facilities.
They are capable of producing one million tonnes of ethylene and 700,000 tonnes of MEG annually.
Lake Charles is the world’s largest oil refinery hub for oil and gas production and logistics in the United States.
The 40:60 JV investment project between the Lotte Chemical Titan and Lotte Chemical Corp (LCC) had invested a total capital of US$3.1 billion.
The company said the success of its project is built on the solid and extensive cooperation between Korea and the United States and the significant support given by the United States government and ministries.
Through this project, the Lotte Group became the first Korean petrochemical company to build and operate a petrochemical complex in the United States.
The project will expand Lotte Group’s global presence and contribute meaningfully to LCC’s global ethylene production capacity, which will reach 4.5 million tonnes per year, making it the largest domestic and seventh largest producer of ethylene in the world.
The 1.0 million tonne ethane cracker manufacturing facility was developed by means of a JV structure between LC USA, owning a 88 per cent stake and Axiall Corp owned by Westlake Chemical Corp, which owns the remaining 12 per cent stake.
The company’s effective stake in this ethane cracker is 35.2 per cent.
Axiall Corp will offtake half of the ethylene produced from the ethane cracker and the other half will be consumed by the LC USA MEG Plant as the primary feedstock.
The MEG facility is wholly-owned by LC USA and the company has a 40 per cent stake in the facility.
The company said the project was delivered on time and within budget is attributable to the LCC’s proven track record of excellent technical knowledge and project management skills.
This was evidenced by the successful development of LCC’s US$3.9 billion Uzbekistan Surgil project in 2015.
MEG is a vital ingredient for the production of polyester fibres and film, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resins and engine coolants.
The ethane cracker will take the ethane gas and process it into ethylene.