Chevron to Expand Cedar Bayou Plant

Chevron Phillips Chemical will build a new facility at its Cedar Bayou plant in Texas to produce components for plastics used for film, pipe, detergent bottles and food and beverage containers, the company said on Monday.

The plant will produce up to 250,000 metric tons per year of 1-hexene, which is a component of polyethylene, the company said, and is expected to start up in the first quarter of 2014.

The company had previously said it planned to add new ethylene capacity to the Cedar Bayou complex that would benefit from the new supplies of natural gas liquids coming from shale fields.

Chevron Phillips Chemical is a 50-50 partnership between Chevron and ConocoPhillips.