Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners and a Chinese partner are building an export facility on the U.S. Gulf Coast near Houston to ship as much as 150,000 barrels per day of ethane to China for processing.

Zhejiang Satellite PetroChemical Co. set up the joint venture and will use the raw material for use in petrochemical plants it is building in China.

Total investment is reported to be $630 million. The ethane will feed Satellite's 320-million-ton light hydrocarbon project in Lianyungang, East China’s Jiangsu province.

Satellite's venture partner is Sunoco Partners Marketing & Terminals L.P., a unit of Energy Transfer Partners.

The partners will also build a 20-inch ethane pipeline to connect Energy Transfer Partners' Mont Belvieu Fractionators near Houston with the export terminal. An 800,000 barrel refrigerated ethane storage tank and a 175,000 barrel per day ethane refrigeration facility are also planned.

Additional infrastructure is expected to include equipment to load the ethane onto very large ethane carriers for shipment. Subject to Chinese governmental approval, the export terminal is expected to be ready for commercial service in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Energy Transfer Partners is a master limited partnership that owns and operates energy assets in the United States, including natural gas midstream, intrastate and interstate transportation and storage assets; crude oil, natural gas liquids and refined product transportation and terminal assets; NGL fractionation; and other assets.