Phillips 66 announces plans for new Gulf Coast facility

Phillips 66 announced Tuesday it will pursue building a 100,000 barrel-per-day natural gas liquids fractionator in Old Ocean, Texas, near the company’s refinery in Sweeny.

If approved by regulators, construction is expected to begin in early 2014, with startup expected in the second half of 2015.

The project would create more than 25 full time jobs and hundreds of temporary construction jobs, the company said in its announcement.

Fractionation is the process of separating natural gas liquids into different components used in various industries, including the manufacturing of plastics for everyday items.

Phillips 66 Chairman and CEO Greg Garland said the company wanted to take advantage of strong existing midstream transportation and storage infrastructure.

“We see excellent market-facing opportunities to grow the natural gas liquids business, and the chance to supply purity NGLs and liquefied petroleum gas to the petrochemical industry and heating markets,” he said in a statement.

Phillips 66 was created last year in a split with ConocoPhillips. It includes refining, midstream and chemicals businesses and includes natural gas liquids gathering, long haul transportation, storage and fractionation.

The company owns fractionation facilities in Kansas and Mont Belvieu, Texas. It is the operator of the Mont Belvieu facility.

It said natural gas liquids feedstock for the Old Ocean fractionator project would be supplied by several nearby pipelines to avoid the Mont Belvieu congestion. Products made by the fractionator would be marketed primarily to petrochemical customers in the region with access to Mont Belvieu.

Phillips 66 said it recently sent notices seeking interest from potential Y-grade suppliers of natural gas liquids.

The project is currently in the engineering design phase, and the company said it is in the process of filing for permits.