Prime Minister of Trinidad Patrick Manning says project offers opportunity for developing downstream activity. - file

Trinidad and Tobago's goal of establishing a plastics industry with spin-off businesses inched closer with the signing of a US$2.3 billion deal between the government and Dutch company LyondellBasell and Lurgi GmbH earlier this week.

The parties will jointly evaluate the construction and operation of a fully integrated polypropylene complex, as specified in their 'project development agreement', according to LyondellBasell in a statement.

The project will include the production of 490 kilo tonnes of polyolefins from three plants, including a methanol plant and a methanol-to-propylene facility.

"Our main goal is to establish a sustainable local and regional supply of polyolefins to the emerging local plastics industry, to South American markets where demand is forecasted to increase at an average annual growth rate of 5.2 per cent, as well as the existing large North American markets," said Volker Trautz, chief executive officer of LyondellBasell Industries.

Start-up of operations is tentatively scheduled for late 2012.

CEO happy

The entire project will be undertaken in conjunction with Lurgi GmbH, the industry leader in methanol and MTP(R) technology.

"We are happy to have the Government of Trinidad and Tobago now joining the project. It will combine the leading position of NGC (National Gas Company) and NEC (National Energy Corporation) in Trinidad and Tobago, with the state-of-the-art technology of LyondellBasell and Lurgi, as well as the marketing capability of LyondellBasell."

Trinidad joined the partnership to facilitate domestic plans to develop second and third derivate industries from natural gas.

Energy industries

"The polyolefin industry is one such industry identified for development as it is viewed as a building block for expansion of the local plastics manufacturing sector," said Andrew Jupiter, acting president of NEC, a state agency, whose mandate is to promote new gas-based and associated downstream energy industries.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning also hailed the proposed complex, saying Trinidad needed to introduce industries with downstream capability.

Quantum leap

He described the project as a 'quantum leap' for the downstream energy sector.

LyondellBasell Industries is one of the world's largest polymers, petrochemicals and fuels companies.

It described itself as a global leader in polyolefins technology, production and marketing; a pioneer in propylene oxide and derivatives and a significant producer of fuels and refined products, including bio-fuels.

Lurgi, a company of the Air Liquide Group is a leading technology company operating worldwide in the fields of process engineering and plant contracting.

The strength of Lurgi lies in innovative technologies of the future focusing on customised solutions for growth markets.

The technological leadership is based on proprietary technologies and exclusively licensed technologies in the areas gas-to-petrochemical products via synthesis gas or methanol and synthetic fuels, petrochemicals, refining, polymers industry and renewable resources/food.

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