INEOS invests €150m

News

INEOS Polyolefins recently announced its intention to invest in excess of €150m in its European assets over the next three years. The company will focus on growing and upgrading its polyolefins capacities.

Polypropylene capacity expansions will take place at its facilities in Geel, Belgium and Grangemouth, Scotland.

At Geel a 220ktpa expansion of the Innovene P gas phase polypropylene unit will increase this unit's capacity to 500ktpa, transforming it into one of the largest units in the world. The smaller slurry/dry flash polypropylene asset at Geel will close later this year.

At Grangemouth the 220ktpa liquid pool polypropylene unit will undergo a 30ktpa de-bottleneck raising its capacity to 280ktpa, with a further 30ktpa de-bottleneck to be implemented when market demand permits.

High-density polyethylene capacity expansions will take place at INEOS Polyolefins' Lillo manufacturing site, whereby the capacity of its proprietary bi-modal slurry phase unit will be increased by 200ktpa to 630ktpa. The new capacity, which will be in place by 2009, will also make this asset one of the largest in the world.

At Grangemouth, given the current situation in plant economics, and provided there are no significant changes in market conditions, the smaller and older of its two gas phase polyethylene units, a HDPE unit, located at this site will close at the end of 2007.

Separately, INEOS ChlorVinyls has submitted its application to the Department for Trade and Industry for a proposed new Combined Heat and Power (CHP) facility at Weston Point, Cheshire.

The project, announced in September 2006, will consist of a plant that will use the latest ‘Energy from Waste’ technology to burn Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) derived from domestic refuse to generate heat and power for use at INEOS’s neighbouring manufacturing operation at Runcorn Site.

It is expected that up to 20 percent of Runcorn Site’s energy needs could be provided by the CHP facility, which could be operational by 2011.

According INEOS ChlorVinyls, Energy from Waste is a tried and tested technology that is already being used extensively in Denmark, The Netherlands, France and Sweden, where at least 25% of waste is treated through Energy from Waste schemes.