Eastman Welcomes Two New Strategic Tenants to its Texas City Site

Eastman Chemical Company announced today participation in a strategic project with Gulf Coast Ammonia (GCA) and Air Products, Inc.. GCA will lease a portion of Eastman’s Texas City site and will own a new world-scale ammonia production plant. Air Products will build, own and operate at Eastman’s Texas City site its largest-ever steam methane reformer, an air separation unit to supply nitrogen, and a steam turbine generator to supply power and certain other utilities to operate the new ammonia plant.

Eastman acquired its Texas City site on the U.S. Gulf Coast through its purchase of Sterling Chemical, Inc. in August 2011 and restarted idled plasticizer manufacturing capacity to produce non-phthalate plasticizers including Eastman 168™ non-phthalate plasticizer shortly afterwards.

This latest project leverages a portion of the Eastman Texas City site’s available land, infrastructure, and deep-water port to create value for Eastman through a long-term lease, site service and utility cost sharing, and a strategic off-take agreement to purchase cost-advantaged ammonia to produce its specialty products.

“We are excited to welcome Gulf Coast Ammonia and Air Products to our Texas City site and to help bring growth to the Texas City area through this mutually beneficial project,” said Lucian Boldea, executive vice president of Additives & Functional Products and Chemical Intermediates. “We are seeing increasing interest in opportunities at the site and are continuing to work on additional value-creating strategic projects.”

Eastman is pleased that GCA is incorporating state-of-the-art safety processes in the new facility. Eastman has a long history with Air Products and welcomed the opportunity to work with them on this project.