Mexico's Etileno XXI to begin producing ethylene at end of week and PE from next week

25-Mar-16

Mexico's Etileno XXI will begin producing on-spec ethylene on Sunday, Braskem-Idesa spokeswoman Yeraseth Bello has been reported by Platts. "We began feeding the cracker with ethane three days ago," Bello said. "We will start up a PE line next week." The start-up is a combination of a project that was first conceived in 2008 and has a cost of US$5.2 bln. This is a joint venture between Braskem (75%) and Mexico's Grupo Idesa (25%). Etileno XXI polyethylene production is expected to begin with HDPE injection resin, the first resin produced, with blowmolding coming during the second set of start-ups. Low density production is expected to begin in the second half of April. In total, the project will include a 1 million mt/year of PE capacity. XXI will be anchored by a 1 mln mtpa ethylene capacity steam cracker and include 1 mln mtpa of polyethylene capacity and will be the first new steam cracker built in North America in more than a decade.