At the conference, much has been said about the expected ample availability of LPG in the US, and the value of feedstock flexibility in exploring margin growth.
Cracking lighter feedstock yields less propylene leading to increased global emphasis on on-purpose propylene production.
Most European crackers use naphtha to produce propylene.
In November, Borealis said it would soon move to the front-end engineering and design phase for a new PDH plant to produce propylene from propane after successfully concluding the pre-FEED phase in June.
The plant, with a propylene production capacity of 740,000 mt/year, will be built at the Borealis production site in Kallo, Belgium.
Start-up of the plant is scheduled for the beginning of 2022.
The building of a PDH plant in Europe would allow Borealis to capitalize on using propane’s cost advantage as a feedstock.
–Daved Chohan, daved.chohan@spglobal.com
–Edited by Jonathan Dart, jonathan.dart@spglobal.com