DuPont Clean Technologies has won a contract from Next Wave Energy Partners to provide licensing, engineering and proprietary equipment for a Stratco alkylation unit in Pasadena, Texas, USA. The value of the contract was not disclosed.

The alkylation unit will enable Next Wave to generate low-sulfur, high-octane alkylate with zero olefins that exceeds current US gasoline specifications. The unit is scheduled to start up in mid-2022.

Next Wave made a final investment decision last November to proceed with the facility, known as Project Traveler, which will be located on its site adjacent to the Houston Ship Channel.

The plant will have a nameplate capacity of 28,000 barrels per day and be able to consume more than 1.2 billion lbs. per year of ethylene, which will be delivered to the site by multiple pipelines. The company has entered into long-term customer contracts for a majority of the akylate output.

“Project Traveler was conceived to benefit from two important trends in our industry – growing demand for additional octane and abundant domestic supplies of natural gas liquids and their derivatives,” said Next Wave executive chairman Patrick Diamond.

 “By starting with a chemically pure feedstock and thereby avoiding the feedstock constraints typically found in refinery alkylation, our facility will produce one of the highest-quality alkylate products available in North America, which is particularly attractive for blending the cleaner-burning gasoline required by the high performance engines of today and tomorrow,” Diamond said.

Next Wave president and CEO Michael Bloesch added that the company has already started engineering work on a second alkylation unit at its Pasadena site to “capitalize on incremental demand for our services” and is working with potential suppliers and offtake partners.

Alkylate typically comprises between 11-13% of the overall gasoline pool in the US.

DuPont said it has licensed more than 100 Stratco units worldwide.