Chevron Philips broke ground on a massive new ethane cracker plant in Baytown, Texas, last week that will transform ethane, a component of natural gas, into ethylene, a component used to make plastics. CEO Peter Cella said in an article on the Fuelfix blog that the plant will be the size of nearly 50 football fields, with 350 miles of piping; 1,600 miles of cable and 140,000 tons of concrete.
An article in the Houston Business Journal said a joint venture between Japan-based JGC Corp. and Fluor Enterprises Inc. won the engineering, procurement and construction project to build the Baytown plant. Dallas-based Fluor has said its Houston area-office will lead the effort, which includes hiring the construction team for the cracker.