Motiva may finish Port Arthur, Tx., chemical plant purchase by end October: sources

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Motiva Enterprises [MOTIV.UL] will be ready to complete the purchase of a Flint Hills Resources chemical plant next to its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery by the end of October, sources familiar with Motiva’s plans said on Tuesday.

With the addition of the chemical plant, which has an ethane cracker but lacks units to process ethylene coming from the cracker, Motiva plans to accelerate construction of a polyethylene unit to process the ethylene, the sources said.

Due to the accelerated timeline for the polyethylene unit, Motiva will slow down work on an ethane cracker and an aromatics unit it planned to build in the refinery, the sources said.

The final investment decision on the last two units is being pushed back to late 2021, the sources said.

Neither Motiva nor Flint Hills representatives were immediately available to comment.

A final investment decision on the polyethylene and aromatics units as well as the ethane cracker had been expected between late this year and spring 2020.

Motiva is still awaiting regulatory approval of the purchase, which could change the final acquisition date, the sources said.

Motiva, a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, , has not disclosed what it is paying Flint Hills, a subsidiary of privately-held Koch Industries [KCHINR.UL]

The two companies announced the sale on Aug. 19.

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