Integrated chemical producer Ineos has opened the largest above-ground LPG storage tank in Europe. The new 135,000 cubic metres (around 80,000 tons) tank is located at the Oiltanking Antwerp Gas Terminal (AGT) in Belgium and doubles the terminal’s refrigerated butane storage capacity. The new tank is part of the company’s $5-billion expansion projects in northwest Europe. The cost of the project, however, remains undisclosed.
The new tank enables Ineos to import US butane on VLGCs and ship products via barges along the Rhine river to its crackers in the Cologne petrochemical plant. The ability to import butane gives Ineos more flexibility to use different feedstocks at its European-based crackers. The company is also building a €3-billion ($3.4 billion) ethane cracker and PDH complex in Antwerp.
