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TotalEnergies SE and Borealis AG have started up the new $1.4 billion Borstar polyethylene (PE) unit of their Baystar joint venture in Bayport, Texas.
The PE unit, with a capacity of 625,000 metric tons per year, more than doubles the current production capacity at the Baystar site, which includes two legacy PE production units, the two companies said in a joint news release. The unit, named Bay 3, completes the partners’ integrated petrochemicals venture, which includes the expanded Bayport PE facility and the ethane cracker at the TotalEnergies platform in Port Arthur, Texas.
Bay 3 features the proprietary Borstar 3G technology licensed in North America for the first time, according to the release. Borstar technology “delivers advanced value-added polymers with enhanced sustainability by enabling light-weighting and the incorporation of greater amounts of post-consumer recycled materials in a variety of end products, serving the energy, infrastructure, and consumer products industries”, the release said.
“After the inauguration of the ethane cracker unit in Port Arthur last year, the start-up of the new PE unit is the second milestone of this joint venture aimed at establishing Baystar as a fully integrated U.S. petrochemical player”, TotalEnergies President for Refining and Chemicals Bernard Pinatel said. “The fruition of this venture also advances TotalEnergies’ ambition to grow in the United States”.
“The arrival of Borealis’ proprietary Borstar technology in North America by way of Baystar marks, in line with our owners’ strategies, a crucial step for us in becoming a global leader in advanced and sustainable chemicals and material solutions”, Borealis CEO Thomas Gangl said. “Expanding and deepening our footprint through Baystar enables us to better serve customers and partners by offering improved access to Borstar-based products produced right here in North America”.
New 15-Year Solar PPA in North America
Meanwhile, TotalEnergies signed a 15-year renewable power purchase agreement (PPA) with building material company Saint-Gobain, the second long-term solar power supply agreement designed to help decarbonize the power consumption of Saint-Gobain’s 125 industrial sites in North America.
Under the 100-megawatt (MW) PPA, TotalEnergies will supply clean energy from its Danish Fields Solar farm in Texas, which the company said would help offset Saint-Gobain’s North American scope 2 carbon dioxide emissions from electricity by 90,000 metric tons per year. With a capacity of 720 MW, TotalEnergies’ solar farm is expected to come online in 2024 and will be the company’s largest utility-scale operated solar farm in the USA. This contract includes an upside-sharing mechanism, under which the companies share any potential upside arising from increased market price over the contract term. TotalEnergies said in a separate news release.
“We are truly excited to reinforce our collaboration with Saint-Gobain with this new clean energy commitment and therefore contribute to their carbon neutrality roadmap”, TotalEnergies Senior Vice President for Renewables Vincent Stoquart said. “TotalEnergies’ growing solar power generation portfolio in the U.S. provides concrete solutions enabling our industrial customers to decarbonize their electricity consumption. The signing of upside sharing CPPAs [corporate power purchase agreements] contributes to the objective of profitable growth for our Integrated Power business”.
“With this agreement, Saint-Gobain North America will further reduce its CO2 emissions, demonstrating how fast the manufacturing industry can transform when long-term solutions are at hand”, Saint-Gobain North America CEO said. “This renewable energy project is a new milestone on the way to meeting Saint-Gobain’s commitment to reduce scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions by 33 percent by 2030 — compared to 2017 — and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050”.
TotalEnergies is one of the top renewable energy developers in the United States, with a portfolio of large-scale solar, storage, onsite B2B solar distributed generation, onshore and offshore wind projects that are expected to generate up to 10 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power by 2025 and more than 25 GW by 2030, according to the release.
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