Ineos, a London-based chemicals company, opted for Port of Antwerp in Belgium, to use as a location to built two new petrochemical plants. The plan is based on a 3 billion euros investment and is to create 400 new jobs directly and five times that number indirectly, according to the port’s statement. The company aims to construct a propane dehydrogenation unit and an ethane cracker in Northwest Europe.
Mainly, the new petrochemical plant will be co-located with Ineos’ existing sites in Europe making polymers and will be connected by pipeline to a number of Ineos ethylene and propylene derivative units in the region.
The plant will convert propane into propylene and ethylene as the raw materials for chemical products that find their way into many industries including car manufacturing, building construction, clothing, cosmetics and personal grooming products, pharmaceuticals, electronics and packaging materials.
Moreover, the PDH unit alone will have a total capacity of 750,000 mt/year and the production plants are planned to begin operations by 2024.
Concluding, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, CEO and chairman of Ineos, highlighted that the company’s investment in gas cracker and world-scale PDH unit is the largest of its kind in Europe and it is a crucial development for the European petrochemical industry.
He continued that:
We believe this investment will reverse years of decline in the European chemicals sector.
