NOVA Chemicals says work on its $2.2 billion polyethylene facility in St. Clair Township is progressing well.
It was a year ago this month that NOVA made the announcement of the significant local investment.
The company said 2018 was a productive year, and the Rokeby Line site has undergone significant transformation since work started in late 2017.
Spokesperson Meaghan Lawrence said trucks have delivered over 60,000 tonnes of gravel to create roadways and parking lots, and 1,200 trees have been planted.
She said a berm was built to mitigate noise, and 1,300 metres of Rokeby Line has been upgraded.
"We currently have 120 local tradespeople on site and over 300,000 work hours in the last year have progressed activities like foundation, road work and site preparation," she said.
Lawrence said in 2019 equipment deliveries including structural steel will begin, and cement will be delivered to continue foundation work.
Up to 1,400 construction workers are on site at any given time, and 150 full-time workers will be hired once the project is complete.
Construction of the new facility is tied to an expansion of the Corunna site that produces ethylene which is used in the production of polyethylene.
NOVA said it will expand the Corunna cracker by about 50 percent to provide ethylene feedstock to the new polyethylene facility which will increase NOVA's polyethylene production capacity by approximately 950 million pounds annually.
