Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France) announced that Arcanum Infrastructure, LLC and Axens NA Inc. successful began ongoing operations and production of 1-Butene at Raven 1-Butene, LLC, which is an asset based on Axens AlphaButol technology located in Baytown, Texas.
“We are excited to announce the successful operation of the first asset under the Arcanum platform. We are very happy with the support and partnership of Axens as a licensor for the Raven Butene-1 project”, states Ted Pettijohn, President Arcanum Infrastructure, LLC and Raven Butene-1, LLC.
Raven Butene-1’s General Manager, Nicholas Stewart added: “We initiated the startup activities late last year and reached full performance around mid-year. Starting a new process during normal times is challenging but COVID-19 made it even more complicated. The whole Raven team including Axens really pulled together well to insure a safe, efficient operation.”
“Today marks not only another achievement to the successful track record of AlphaButol, but also its first startup on American soil. We congratulate the Raven Butene-1 team and Arcanum Infrastructure on this significant milestone and are pleased to renew Axens commitment throughout Raven project life cycle” said Jean Sentenac, Axens CEO.
Axens’ AlphaButol is the world leading technology for the production of on-purpose high purity 1-Butene through ethylene dimerization. It belongs to a family of technologies based on homogenous catalysis for which extensive research and development has been performed since the mid-60’s. Since the process operates in the liquid phase using a soluble catalyst system which avoids isomerization of 1-Butene into 2-Butene, there is no need for super-fractionation of the product stream.