Denver, Colorado-based gas producer Badlands NGLs is planning to build a merchant alpha olefins plant on the US Gulf Coast. A decision on the plant’s location is expected in the next few weeks with two alternatives currently being considered. Both options are located on or adjacent to water transport making it easy for Badlands to supply both domestic and international customers.

The facility will produce 93,000 t/y of 1-butene and 141,000 t/y of 1-hexene using Badlands’ proprietary metathesis technology. Badlands said its own technology has the advantage of enabling on-purpose production of the PE co-monomers without the presence of other by-products. The company explained that most PE co-monomer alpha olefins are made via an oligomerization process that produces a range of 14 different products including 1-butene and 1-hexene in set ratios.

An engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) agreement has been reached with S&B Engineers and Constructor, which includes schedule and cost guarantees. The plant is expected to start operating in around two years’ time. A 15-year offtake agreement for all of the output has been signed with an undisclosed major petrochemical and polymers company – one that Badlands said has been a longstanding partner. In addition, an agreement has been finalized with an unnamed institutional investor to source all the necessary funding.

Badlands is also building two major PE complexes in the US – one in North Dakota, the other at a location not yet revealed. Univation Technologies, part of Dow Chemical, is licensing its Unipol process for four PE reactors with a total capacity of 2.4 million t/y. The capacity will be split equally between the sites with two lines being installed and each producing 600,000 t/y. A start-up date has not yet been confirmed.