Repsol SA is adding two new units at its petrochemicals complex in Sines, Portugal, which will increase the facility’s polypropylene and linear polyethylene and capacity by 300,000 tonnes per year each.
Scheduled to be completed in 2025, the new units will be built at subsidiary Repsol Polímeros SA’s petrochemical complex at the Sines Industrial and Logistics Zone, about 5 km northeast of Sines, Portugal, 150 km south of Lisbon.
Repsol will invest €657 million ($777 million) in the units and related logistics facilities, including a rail link and carbon emission reduction measures.
The plants will target 100%-recyclable polymeric materials for use in highly specialized applications aligned with energy transition initiatives within the pharmaceutical, automotive, and food industries, the company said.
There are no plans to alter either the capacity of the cracker at Sines that produces ethylene and propylene feedstocks, or output of the existing 145,000 tonnes per year low density polyethylene (LDPE) and 150,000 tonnes per year high density polyethylene (HDPE) plants, according to Repsol.
Polypropylene has not been produced at Sines since the closure of a plant in 1992. Repsol said that the proposed expansion is made possible because of the way it operates its complexes in Spain and Portugal in an integrated way. The cracker at Sines has nameplate capacities of 410,000 tonnes per year ethylene and 220,000 tonnes per year propylene.
Regular ethylene and propylene exports from Sines will probably fall or halt when the new plants start up.
Determining the proposed expansion at Sines to be an investment of national interest, the government of Portugal has approved the project for tax incentives worth up to €63 million ($75 million), Repsol said.