How will BASF use the cracker products?
The cracker will help satisfy BASF’s additional propylene requirements that have doubled at Freeport, Texas, as a result of oxo alcohol and acrylic acid expansions. Ethylene from the cracker will be used to produce ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol at Geismar, Louisiana. In turn, the ethylene oxide can be used to produce surfactants at BASF sites in Washington, New Jersey; Whitestone, South Carolina; Gurnee, Illinois; and Clear Lake, Texas. Both ethylene and benzene from the cracker may also be used to produce styrene, which BASF uses to make polystyrene at Joilet, Illinois and Altamira, Mexico, and expandable polystyrene at South Brunswick, New Jersey. Styrene is also used to make styrene butadiene latex dispersions at BASF’s Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Monaca, Pennsylvania, sites.
