Sweeny Hub captures award for engineering

Phillips 66 is capturing honors for its most recent expansion in Texas as it advances its latest growth project in the natural gas liquids space, 

The company’s Sweeny Hub Phase 2 Expansion, which in 2020 cemented Phillips 66’s status as a major player in the U.S. NGL space, was recently named Best Energy/Industrial Project by the prestigious Engineering News-Record magazine.

“We’re honored for the recognition,” said Mike Wirkowski, Vice President of Major Projects. “The startup of these two world-scale units was a milestone for Phillips 66 in the NGL space, and it’s a real testament to our ingenuity and agility that we did it safely, on time and under budget with all of the challenges the pandemic put in front of us.”

The expansion, known as SHP-2, brought online two of the world’s largest NGL fractionators at 150,000 barrels per day of processing capacity each to quadruple fractionation capacity at the Sweeny Hub, a collection of NGL-gathering, processing and logistics assets in Texas’ Brazoria County that also includes the Freeport LPG Export Terminal and Clemens Caverns storage facility.

The $1.4 billion project, which won a Golden Shield Award in 2021, finished some $100 million under budget and two months ahead of schedule despite challenges posed by weather and the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the safest megaproject by Phillips 66 to date, with a total recordable injury/illness rate that was 33 times better than the industry average and 4 million consecutive work hours without a recordable incident. 

S&B Engineers and Constructors, SHP-2’s lead design firm and builder, nominated the project for the award. Per Energy News-Record, S&B described the project as a testament to teamwork and one of the most efficient and lowest greenhouse gas-emitting facilities it has built, when evaluated per barrel of feedstock processed.

Phillips 66 landed the honor as it advances the construction of fourth fractionator at Sweeny. The new 150,000 BPD unit is expected to begin commercial operations in the fourth quarter of 2022 and position Sweeny Hub as the second-largest NGL-fractionation hub in the U.S.