ExxonMobil Synthetics today announced plans to expand the production capacity of its metallocene high viscosity polyalphaolefin plant in Baytown, Texas, by 20% in response to customer needs. The cost and projected completion date of the project were not disclosed.
The company said it confirmed the feasibility of significantly increasing production by conducting a trial at the plant. The project would raise the plant’s capacity from 50,000 metric tons per year to 60,000 t/y. “We are actively procuring the feedstock required to enable the higher production capacity to be brought online as customer demand requires it,” the company told Lube Report in an emailed statement.
Metallocene PAO base stocks are considered particularly well suited for industrial lubricants requiring high stability under severe operating conditions. They can also be used in combination with lower-viscosity fluids – such as lighter PAOs and mineral oils – to formulate a wide range of industrial and automotive lubricants and greases. Metallocene PAOs are manufactured through a process that uses metallocene catalysts to achieve higher viscosity index, improved shear stability and enhanced low-temperature properties, ExxonMobil claims.
“Investing in our production facilities and responding to market drivers allows us to stay at the forefront of the base stocks industry,” Kerrie-Anne Lanigan, vice president of ExxonMobil Synthetics, said in a news release. “As adoption of the metallocene synthetic base stock platform increases across industrial, automotive and wind turbine markets, we’ve invested over half a billion dollars in plant capacity improvements in the last decade.”
The Baytown plant was opened in 2014.
The ExxonMobil Synthetics Business unit has four Group IV and V base stock manufacturing facilities supplying over 375,000 tons across all grades. Group IV refers to PAOs, while Group V includes base fluids such as esters, alkylated naphthalenes and polkyalylene glycols. According to the company’s announcement, it has 209,000 t/y of low viscosity PAO, 102,000 t/y of high-viscosity PAO and 67,000 t/y of esters capacities.
The company noted that consultancy and market intelligence company Kline & Co. forecasted the global synthetic lubricant market to grow by more than 25% between 2020 and 2025, with a further upside in the industrial lubricant space.