Indorama Ventures restarts dormant ethane cracker facility in Westlake
SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA (KPLC) - It was a full house at Thursday's open house for Indorama Ventures, the Thailand-based company restarting a dormant ethane cracker facility in Westlake.
The $175-million project will be built on Cities Service Highway.
The property, previously owned by OxyChem, closed down in 2001 and has since sat dormant - until now.
"We're moving forward very rapidly right now," said Dalton Landry, site coordinator for Indorama Ventures.
Landry said the Thailand-based company purchased some 250 acres off Cities Service Highway for a large scale project.
"The facility we're refurbishing on that is approximately 10-15 acres of that site. We'll produce approximately 370,000 metric tons of ethylene and 30,000 metric tons of propylene," explained Landry.
While Landry said they're still in the engineering phase for inspections, an open house Thursday at the West Cal Events Center catered to those looking for job opportunities.
"We're 44 on-site right now - permanent employees. And our plans are to hire around 100 permanent positions at the facility," said Landry.
That's in addition to some 400-500 construction jobs and close to 500 new, indirect jobs for Southwest Louisiana.
It's what drew in attendees like Ashleigh Wert.
"We are with a staffing company;, we specialize in industrial staffing. So we just wanted to introduce ourselves to the people that are bringing new work into Southwest Louisiana," she said.
Some brought resumes; others passed out cards.
For Brad McFarlain, it was more like deja vu.
"I was there from 1986-2001 when they closed," he said.
A former process control engineering employee, McFarlain said it piqued his curiosity.
"I just decided to come check to see what they're going to be doing with the place (where) I used to work," said McFarlain.
"If it would have kept sitting, it would eventually been demolished. And we're going to take a facility that's dormant, beautify it again, bring it back to life -that's repurposing to me," explained Landry.
With renovations underway on the facility, formerly known as the "Blue Goose" building built by Cities Service in 1942, Landry said they're on track for their opening.
"Projected timeline is third quarter of 2017," said Landry.
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