ExxonMobil is set to expand its high-performance synthetic lubricants capacity in southern US at the end of this year.
An 8.3 acre, state-of-the-art facility will be constructed in Port Allen, Louisiana, including a blending center for synthetic aviation oil. The plant will manufacture more than 145 lubricant products, creating an annual throughput of more than 90 million gallons. The plant will replace the company’s existing base stock manufacturing and aviation lubricants operation in Edison, New Jersey, although the company will continue to have a strong presence in the state, employing more than 6,300 employees, retirees and contractors.
With an investment of £200 million in its Baton Rouge chemical and lubricants plants, ExxonMobil is responding to a US-wide increase in demand for high-performance lubricants. Manufacturing of synthetic esters and alkylated naphthalene will also be increased by 25%, making the ExxonMobil plant the world’s largest producer.
Output will begin in 2014 following the closure of the company’s Middlesex County facility in the same year. It will also build a new metallocene polyalpholefins plant at its chemical complex in Baytown, Texas.
“Over the past three years, the corporation’s capital expenditures in the state exceeded $930 million. These investments help create jobs and contribute to the economic growth of the state and the region,” says Paul Stratford, manager of the Baton Rouge chemical plant.
Operating 32 facilities in Louisiana alone, the oil giant has an annual payroll of more than $400 million and made more than $6 million-worth of contributions to charitable and civic organisations in the state.