Nan Ya request to restart plants rejected

(Taipei Times) -- The Yunlin County Government yesterday rejected applications by Nan Ya Plastics Corp to resume production at two factories in its compound in Haifeng, Mailiao Township, although it gave the green light to restarting two other factories earlier in the week.

The Haifeng compound houses five Nan Ya factories that produce several key textile materials and petrochemical intermediaries, such as 1,4-butylene glycol (BG), ethylene glycol (EG) and bisphenol-A (BPA). The county government had ordered the five factories shut down on June 1 in the wake of fires on May 12 and May 18.

The county government convened a 13-member review committee to go over Nan Ya's plans to restart operations at its BPA and BG factories.

On Monday, the county approved Nan Ya's applications to resume operations at two EG plants in the Haifeng compound. They are expected to resume production tomorrow.

Nan Ya is the world's fourth-largest EG producer, accounting for 9 percent of global supply. The Haifeng plants boast annual capacity of 1.8 million tonnes of EG.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Saudi Basic Industries Corporation's (SABIC's) second-quarter net profits have increased 61.4% to Saudi riyals (SR) 8.10bn ($2.16bn) compared with the same quarter last year and are up 5% from the first quarter of 2011, the petrochemicals giant said on Saturday.

The company's income from operations for the quarter ended 30 June 2011 amounted to SR13.28bn compared with SR9.14bn for the same quarter in 2010, representing an increase of 45.3%.
Gross operating profit for the second quarter grew 39.2% year on year to SR16.49bn, SABIC added.

⌠The increase in net income for the quarter and period ended June 30, 2011 compared to the same quarter and period in 2010 is attributable to the increase in production and sales volumes and improvement in sales prices for most of the products, and compared to the first quarter of 2011 is mainly due to the increase in sales volumes as well as improvement in prices for some of the products, the company said on the Saudi stock exchange.


MRC

(ICIS) -- US propylene contracts for July fell by 4 cents/lb (USD 88/tonne, EUR 62/tonne), market sources said on Friday, confirming an initial settlement reached earlier this week. The agreement puts polymer-grade propylene (PGP) at 78.00 cents/lb and chemical-grade propylene (CGP) contracts at 76.50 cents/lb, as assessed by ICIS.

The drop this month was driven by lower spot prices in recent weeks, which outweighed gains in gasoline prices and concerns among some producers that alkylation levels were on an upswing.
Alkylation levels can influence the price of refinery-grade propylene (RGP), which accounts for around 60% of the US propylene market.

Refineries can use RGP as an alkylate in gasoline or sell the product to the chemical market.
RGP traded at 68.00-68.75 cents/lb this week, steady with the previous week, but down from deals done at 73.00 cents/lb in the first week of June.

MRC

(ICIS) -- China's Dalian Petrochemical, a subsidiary of PetroChina, is running the downstream facilities of its 10m tonne/year (200,000 bbl/day) crude distillation unit (CDU) in Dalian at reduced rates of about 60% after a fire at the unit two days ago, a company source said on Monday.
The CDU was shut following the fire on Saturday afternoon and no date has been set for it to resume operations, the source said.

The downstream facilities that are running at reduced rates include a 3.8m tonne/year naphtha hydrogenation unit, a 6m tonne/year gasoline and diesel hydrogenation unit, a 3.6m tonne/year hydrogenation cracking unit and a 3m tonne/year residual hydrogenation unit, according to the source.
The fire was the fourth incident to hit China's petrochemical industry over the last six weeks.

The China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) halted operations at some units at its 240,000 bbl/day refinery at Daya Bay, Huizhou, in Guangdong province after a fire broke out at the complex on 11 July. The affected aromatic and reformer units are expected to be shut for months, while operations at other units have been resumed.

CNOOC also suspended production on 13 July at two platforms of the Peng Lai 19-3 (PL19-3) oilfield at Bohai Bay after oil leaks that occurred in early June.

MRC

(Arabian Oil and Gas) -- Increased sales to the second half of 2011 has led gross profits of Saudi International Petrochemical Company ⌠Sipchem to jump 87% to USD 44mln compared to USD 23.3 mln by the same period in 2010, according to Ahmed al-Ohali, CEO of Sipchem.

The CEO said in an interview with Al Arabiya TV channel that methanol and butanediol prices have jumped 15% in the second quarter compared to first quarter as some plants were shutdown in addition to the soaring demand from European markets.

Al-Ohali expected demand to stabilise in the third quarter of this year due holiday season, in addition to negotiations for the next year's contracts which is generally take place in the third quarter of every year.

Al-Ohali said he expected Sipchem's ongoing projects, which include the LDPE project and the ethyl acetate project, to be completed by mid-2013.

MRC