Abundant, affordable domestic natural gas is helping to revitalize
energy-intensive industries like petrochemical manufacturing, a senior
ExxonMobil Chemical Company executive said today.
Bruce Macklin, senior vice president, ExxonMobil Chemical
Company, said the innovative application of technology to produce
natural gas is enabling U.S. chemical manufacturers to competitively
serve the growth markets of Asia and other parts of the world.
In a presentation at the Manufacturing Renaissance Forum,
Bruce Macklin, senior vice president, ExxonMobil Chemical Company, said,
"Looking back 20 years, chemicals were our nation's top export product.
But as recently as five years ago, we were on the verge of becoming an
importer. Now the industry is back on the path of competitively serving
the growth markets of Asia and other parts of the world. This is a great
story, but it's just the beginning."
He said, "ExxonMobil's Energy Outlook indicates that the
chemicals subsector of industrial energy demand will be the
fastest-growing over the next 25 years, largely due to increased demand
for plastics and other advanced products. Petrochemical processes turn
affordable natural gas-based feedstock into lots of products that are
used by people all around the world."
During his presentation at the event convened by Carnegie
Mellon University and the American Fuel & Petrochemical
Manufacturers, Macklin said, "Given the feedstock advantage and the
demand for our products, for the first time in a decade, producers in
North America are talking about expansion in the form of debottlenecks
and new grassroots stream crackers."
ExxonMobil Chemical has filed permit applications for a
petrochemical expansion at its Baytown Olefins Plant in Texas where it
plans to add an ethane cracker. The company also plans to add premium
polyethylene facilities at the nearby Mont Belvieu Plastics Plant. It
will make a final investment decision following completion of these
reviews and approvals.
If developed, it is estimated that the project would create
about 10,000 construction jobs and add about 350 permanent jobs to the
company's workforce of 6,500 in the Baytown area. The proposed project
would also have a multiplier effect and create an additional 3,800 jobs
in local communities.
"The proposed investment reflects ExxonMobil's confidence in
the natural-gas driven revitalization of the U.S. chemical industry,"
Macklin said. "The innovative application of technology to produce
natural gas is enabling U.S. chemical manufacturers to once again invest
in North America, create thousands of jobs and increase sales to
domestic and global markets."