WHERE ALL THOSE NEW CHEMICAL PLANTS ARE GOING It’s Houston’s plastics boom! “Chemical companies from around the world are flocking to the Houston area,” declares the Houston Business Journal, “to take advantage of vast amounts of cheap natural gas, which is used as a chemical feedstock.” The publication counts 8 new or expanded facilities. This handy map shows where they’re headed: Baytown (a new ethane cracker at Chevron Phillips Chemical and expanded ethylene and polyethylene facilities at the ExxonMobil plant), Old Ocean on Hwy. 25 (2 new polyethylene facilities, also for Chevron Phillips), Freeport off Brazosport Boulevard (an ethylene cracker for Dow Chemical), 8280 Sheldon Rd. in Channelview (an expansion of LyondellBasell’s existing ethane facility), 1515 Miller Cut-Off Rd. in La Porte (expanding LyondellBasell’s ethylene plant there), near Alvin on FM 2004 (more ethylene processing at INEOS’s Chocolate Bayou plant), and Clear Lake (a new methanol production plant at the existing Celanese facility). Welcome! [Houston Business Journal] Map: Houston Business Journal