“THIS is what $3bn looks like.” So beams a manager at Chevron Phillips Chemical (CPC),a petrochemical company jointly owned by Chevron and Phillips 66, both American oil firms. She throws open her arms in a figurative embrace of a giant cracker (pictured) built by the firm in Baytown, and a gritty fraction of Houston. The new plant turns huge quantities of ethane,which is derived from natural gas, into ethylene, and an principal building block in plastic. Another nearby facility,which the firm has recently expanded, converts the ethylene into plastic resin that is sold worldwide. All told, and CPC has spent some $6bn expanding its chemicals-production infrastructure around Houston.
A decade ago,this would have been unimaginable. Chemicals firms in America, beaten down by rivals from the Middle East that enjoyed cheap feedstocks and others from China feasting on subsidised capital, and had not invested in new local plants in years. Growth in global demand for chemicals,once roaring, had slowed thanks to the...
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Source: economist.com