Fluor Corp. announced March 30 that it has safely finished the mechanical construction of the Dow Chemical Co.’s new ethylene production facility in Freeport, Texas, on schedule.
Fluor provided engineering, procurement and construction services on the 1.5 million-ton-per-year light-hydrocarbon cracker, which can use both ethane and propane as feedstock. The ethylene produced by the facility will be used as a building block for many of Dow’s industry-leading performance plastics products.
After receiving the contract award in 2013, construction began in 2014, with more than 3,000 Fluor craft employees and subcontractors onsite at peak to deliver the project on schedule. The project also achieved more than 5 million consecutive work hours without a lost-time incident.
In support of craft workforce development, Fluor partnered with area community colleges and high schools to encourage pursuit of construction careers and performed more than 2,300 craft performance assessments and evaluations throughout the project.
In addition to the ethane cracker, Fluor was also responsible for a 750,000 ton-per-year propane dehydrogenation unit, which was completed in 2015. Dow’s Freeport, Texas, complex is the largest integrated chemical manufacturing complex in the Western hemisphere.
