Ethylene from chocolate
27 Nov 2002
BP is expanding ethylene production at its Chocolate Bayou, Texas olefins complex by 295,000 tonnes a year - creating one of the largest and most advanced integrated olefins operations in North America. Chocolate Bayou is currently the largest olefins site in the BP world-wide system.
The expansion of one of the two olefins units at Chocolate Bayou will boost ethylene production to almost two million tonnes a year. The use of new technology at the site will also reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the olefins plants by 80 to 90%.
Scheduled for commissioning and start-up during the second half of 2005, the expansion plan will involve installation of furnaces that will reduce NOx emissions, along with expansion of the product recovery section, installation of equipment for inter-unit transfer and a common control room for all olefins operations.
The expansion will use Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) Selective Cracking Optimum Recovery (SCORE) furnace technology. KBR has been selected as the EPC contractor.
In addition to ethylene, BP's Chocolate Bayou plant produces 900,000 tonnes of propylene and about one million tonnes of polypropylene for the plastics industry every year.
