LyondellBasell announced that it is considering a further expansion project at its Channelview, Texas, petrochemical plant. The expansion would add up to 550 million pounds of ethylene capacity per year. Preliminary engineering work has started to assess the feasibility of the expansion. If it goes forward, completion of the project is anticipated in 2017.

The announced expansion would be in addition to one already underway at the Channelview plant, which involves installation of two large cracking furnaces. They are expected to increase production by 250 million pounds per year when construction is completed in early 2015.

LyondellBasell is also increasing ethylene capacity at two other Texas plants. An 800 million pounds per year expansion was just been finished in La Porte, and another capacity expansion of 800 million pounds per year is being added at LyondellBasell’s Corpus Christi site. That project has an expected completion date in late 2015. When all expansions are completed, the total expected ethylene capacity per year will be 1.85 billion pounds. That figure would increase to 2.4 billion if the additional expansion project is finalized.