LyondellBasell Industries NV (NYSE: LYB) broke ground May 15 on its new polyethylene plant near Houston.
The Hyperzone plant, located at LyondellBasell's existing manufacturing complex in La Porte, Texas, is set to hire for 1,000 positions at the peak of construction and 75 more permanent jobs once it enters service, according to a company press release.
The new facility uses LyondellBasell's Hyperzone technology, which the company says produces stronger, lighter and more durable polyethylene at a cost-effective level. The Hyperzone process was developed in-house, according to the release, by LyondellBasell research and development teams in Italy, Germany, Cincinnati and Houston.
“Today represents the launch of our latest innovation in plastics technology,” said Bob Patel, the CEO of LyondellBasell, in the release. "This is truly a global effort developed by an international team."
The Hyperzone process also allows production of a spectrum of high-density polyethylene at a single facility, something previous technologies weren't able to do, LyondellBasell said. The company intends to market licenses for others to use the proprietary process, too.
The plant is scheduled to come online in 2019, and after its capacity ramps up, it should be able to produce up to 1.1 billion pounds of high-density polyethylene every year, according to the release. The La Porte complex has docks on the south side of the Houston Ship Channel, giving it access to waterborne shipping.
The plant is part of the company's $4 billion expansion through 2020 in the Texas and Gulf Coast regions. Several other companies are also making investments into Houston's petrochemical infrastructure. Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners has made a pair of announcements in April around new and upgrading ethane and ethylene midstream infrastructure nearby, and Midland, Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) completed construction on an ethylene production facility in Freeport shortly before that.
Meanwhile, The Woodlands-based Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC will hire 400 employees to work at two projects, and Japanese company Horiba Ltd. has opened an office near Houston for a subsidiary hoping to ride the wave of the petrochemical expansion in the city.