SCG to expand capacity of ethylene jv with Dow Chemical

Thai conglomerate Siam Cement Group (SCG)’s joint venture with US-based Dow Chemical, Map Ta Phut Olefins Company (MOC), is going ahead with a debottlenecking exercise, with an investment of US$470 million, to enable more feedstock flexibility, it says. SCG owns 67% of MOC and Dow the remaining 33%.

MOC’s olefins production capacity will be boosted by 350,000 tonnes/year, 85-90% of which is ethylene. This debottleneck project will be done in parallel with MOC’s daily operations, and expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2021. Following the completion of this project, MOC’s olefins capacity will reach a total of 2 million tonnes. This compares to MOC’s current capacity of 1.7 million tonnes (900,000 tonnes of ethylene, and 800,000 tonnes of propylene).

Located in the city of Map Ta Phut, in the eastern province of Rayong, MOC is a world scale upstream cracker that is fully integrated downstream, and began commercial operations in April 2010.

The project will enable MOC for more feedstock flexibility and allow opportunity to tap into competitive propane to be used as feedstock.