Total Boosts Ethane Use in Antwerp

Total has started to use ethane to make ethylene at its refining and petchems complex in Antwerp, Belgium, it said July 7.

It said it invested nearly $60mn to revamp one of the two steam crackers there to enable the import of 200,000 metric tons/yr by ship from Norway. Ethane typically makes up about 5% of natural gas production, but concentrations can reach 10% in gas that is produced with oil.

“The Antwerp project is part of Total’s strategy of upgrading its major integrated platforms and expanding its petrochemicals business to take advantage of low-cost feedstock. The Group recently launched two such projects on its giant sites in the US and South Korea,” said Bernard Pinatel, President, Total Refining & Chemicals. The US and Korean projects will use US ethane, a by-product of the US shale gas boom.

Total said that further Antwerp investments, including a unit to process refinery off-gas for use as petrochemical feedstock, would be completed in 2H 2017.

Not all ethane processed in Norway nowadays is local. Ineos imported the first cargo of US ethane into Europe,  in March 2016, for use at its Rafnes petchem plant in Norway and later began ethane imports to another of its plants at Grangemouth in the UK.

Mark Smedley