Norco Ethylene Plant, LA, USA

Norco, Louisiana is a major ethylene production centre. Along with Deer Park in Texas, it is the main ethylene supplier for Shell Chemical's operations in North America. The two plants are the main supports of Shell's Gulf olefins system.

The objective of the expansion of the Shell facilities in both Louisiana and Texas is to defend and possibly expand the company's market share. Shell Chemical is a major competitor in the US merchant ethylene market. It is a smaller player in the merchant market for propylene. The Norco site has the advantage of being placed next to a refinery. This allows it to exploit economies of scale, particularly very low transport costs for the Louisiana plant's feedstock.

Economies have been an important priority for the Shell group, including its petrochemical arm, in the past four years and a major part of these savings have been generated by a cutback in capital investment. However, half of the remaining worldwide capital budget has gone to sites in the Americas, including the Norco plant.

ETHYLENE SRT TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCTION EXPANSION

The Norco ethylene plant was expanded from 1995 to 1996, and expanded again beginning in the second quarter of 2000. There was also a substantial de-bottlenecking operation in 1999.

ABB Lummus Global was contracted as an engineering, procurement and contracting supplier for an ethylene furnace in 1996. The furnace uses SRT technology and was installed in April 1996. The ethylene furnace it installed saw the facility's capacity increased by about 200,000t/yr.

Shell Chemical completed the de-bottlenecking operation during the first quarter of 1999. Ethylene capacity expanded by more than 15%, that is by approximately 200,000t/yr. The operation also increased propylene capacity at the same time.

The 2000 expansion saw ethylene capacity increase by 250,000t/yr to 1.5 million tonnes per year. The propylene capacity rose by 100,000t/yr. This takes the Norco production capacity to one million tonnes per year.

The existing capacity of the ethylene crackers at the Norco site, after the 2000, expansion is approximately 1.5 million tonnes per year. This makes it roughly the same size, in terms of tonnes produced, as the Port Arthur site (although the Port Arthur site claims to have the largest steam cracker in the world).

Feedstocks for the Norco expansion are made up mainly of mixed refinery off-gases and heavy liquids. Shell Oil has a refinery capable of producing 220,000 barrels per day at Norco, next to the petrochemical facilities. Although some of the new capacity will be consumed internally, the bulk of the output will be sold. The 2000 expansion requires feedstock of about 18,000 barrels per day from the refinery. Most of this will be propane, diverted from sales to outside customers.

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