Eastman Chemical seeks help to divest excess ethylene at Longview

01-Feb-16

Eastman Chemical Co. has hired investment bankers to relaunch the process of divesting its excess ethylene at Longview, along with other olefin commodities, as per news-journal.com. The company has been pursuing options for the excess Texas ethylene for a number of years, but the process stalled because of a dispute with Westlake Chemical over a common carrier ethylene pipeline out of Longview. CEO Mark Costa told analysts that after recent favorable court and regulatory rulings, the company would be able to move forward with its plans. In addition to ethylene, Eastman will pursue "strategic options" for other olefin commodity intermediates at Longview that are not essential to its specialty chemicals strategy, Costa said. The ethylene may be packaged with the other olefins and offered to a buyer who has use for those products, he said. The company previously said that it was producing about 1.4 bln lbs per year of ethylene while using only about 50% of it for its own operations. Eastman has three operating crackers and one idled at Longview.