Sep 9 2008
LyondellBasell Industries, through its wholly owned subsidiary Basell Service Company B.V.; the Government of Trinidad and Tobago; The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago, Ltd. (NGC); National Energy Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago, Ltd. (NEC) and Lurgi GmbH announced today that they have signed a Project Development Agreement.
It is intended to provide the relevant framework to govern the relationship among the parties to evaluate jointly the construction and operation of a fully integrated polypropylene complex in Trinidad and Tobago.
The project will include the production of 490 KT of polyolefins based on three world-scale plants, including a methanol plant and a methanol-to-propylene (MTP®) plant. The propylene produced by Lurgi's MegaMethanol® and MTP® technologies will supply feedstock to a polypropylene plant based on LyondellBasell's Spherizone technology.
"Our main goal is to establish a sustainable local and regional supply of polyolefins to the emerging local plastics industry, to South American markets where demand is forecasted to increase at an average annual growth rate of 5.2 percent, as well as the existing large North American markets," explained Volker Trautz, Chief Executive Officer of LyondellBasell Industries. Start up of operations is tentatively scheduled for late 2012. The entire project will be undertaken in conjunction with Lurgi GmbH, the industry leader in methanol and MTP® technology.
Trautz added: "We are happy to have the Government of Trinidad and Tobago now joining the project. It will combine the leading position of NGC and NEC in Trinidad and Tobago, with the state-of-the-art technology of LyondellBasell and Lurgi, as well as the marketing capability of LyondellBasell."
"The thrust of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago is to develop the second and third derivate industries from natural gas. The polyolefin industry is one such industry identified for development as it is viewed as a building block for expansion of the local plastics manufacturing sector," explained Andrew Jupiter, President (Ag) of NEC.
The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC) was founded in 1975 and plays a key role in the development of the natural gas-based energy sector through its core responsibility, that is, the purchase, transmission, sale and distribution of natural gas in Trinidad and Tobago.
National Energy Corporation (NEC) is a wholly owned subsidiary of NGC with the mandate to promote new gas-based and associated downstream energy industries and the development and management of industrial estates, port and marine facilities for the gas-based energy sector.
Posted September 9th, 2008