HOUSTON, January 12, 2000 — Lyondell Chemical Company (NYSE:LYO) today announced that it has awarded two major contracts for the Company’s new butanediol (BDO) and derivatives production facility in The Netherlands. Kvaerner ASA has been selected to provide construction and procurement services and Air Products Nederland, B.V. to supply syngas, hydrogen, steam, and electricity to the plant being built at Lyondell’s Botlek site in Rotterdam.
"We’re selecting world-class providers for this new BDO facility," said Joe Lee, European Utilities/Gases Supply manager. "Air Products has been the primary supplier of industrial gases to our BDO plant in Channelview, Texas for the past five years," Lee added. "Capitalizing on this experience helps assure our customers of consistently excellent product quality combined with highly reliable production and delivery."
Kvaerner’s work on the Company’s propylene glycol ethers plant at the Botlek site, completed in 1994, was outstanding, said Geoff Mountain, project manager. "That plant is operating well above design capacity and producing high quality product," he said.
"Every aspect of our new Rotterdam facility is based on proven, state-of-the-art technology and the benefits of integrated site economics," said Tom Kilburn, business director, Performance Chemicals. "The facility will provide large-scale, reliable, low-cost BDO production with the vertical integration of our existing PO plant. And the catalyst technology we’ve developed and refined over the past three years will improve yields by 10 to 15 percent while reducing capital costs by 15 to 20 percent."
Scheduled for start-up in the second half of 2001, the new BDO plant will use propylene oxide (PO) from Lyondell’s adjacent production facility as its primary feedstock. More than 75 percent of its 125,000 metric ton/275 million pound annual capacity is committed to customers around the world. Key derivatives produced at the plant will include allyl alcohol and MPDiolÒ glycol.
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LCC-01-02
