Celanese Corp. recently announced several strategic milestones at its Clear Lake, Texas, and Nanjing, China, plants. The actions enhance the competitive cost position, sustainable footprint, and operational flexibility of the Acetyl Chain (AC) business and allow it to meet future demand growth. These include:

• The startup of a new 1.3 million-ton Clear Lake acetic acid expansion in March 2024, which the company believes to be the lowest-cost and lowest-carbon footprint acetic acid facility in the world, based on internal estimates. This milestone builds upon the recently announced and ISCC-certified carbon capture and utilization (CCU) project that increased the capacity of the Fairway Methanol joint venture with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. by 130 kt while capturing 180 kt of CO₂ industrial emissions. The low-carbon methanol can provide customers with low-carbon ECO-CC AC and Engineered Materials downstream products for a wide range of consumer applications.
• The startup of a new vinyl acetate ethylene (VAE) unit in Nanjing and completion of global, low-capital downstream redispersible polymer powders (RDP) debottlenecking projects. This new VAE unit increases capacity by 70 kt and expands the Acetyl Chain’s ability to leverage the full breadth of its integrated product chain in the Asia region and address growing regional demand for both VAE and downstream RDP.
• The Celanese subsidiary, Celanese (Nanjing) Chemical Co. Ltd., has extended its CO Phase II contract with Nanjing Chengzhi Clean Energy Co., Ltd. for the supply of carbon monoxide to its facility in Nanjing. Carbon monoxide is a key feedstock in the production of acetic acid. The extended contract will provide the Celanese Nanjing facility with reliable long-term supply of carbon monoxide for its 1,200 kt acetic acid plant as well as additional operating flexibility.

“Our teams in Clear Lake and Nanjing did an incredible job of working both across our business and with valued partners like Chengzhi to deliver on key operational investments that improve our optionality and position us to increase foundational earnings through expected adjusted EBIT by $100 million to $1.4 billion as we previously reported,” said Mark Murray, senior vice president, Acetyls, Celanese. “These moves not only advance our ability to meet customer requirements with a flexible, low-cost approach, but also makes us well-positioned for future global and regional growth.”

Learn more about Celanese at www.celanese.com.