Chemical companies to promote a positive image of the industry - EPCA

(ICIS) -- Chemical companies must raise their efforts to promote a positive image of the industry and highlight the importance of chemistry, European Petrochemical Association (EPCA) delegates were told on Monday. In his opening address, EPCA president Tom Crotty urged a record 2,500 delegates at the 45th annual EPCA meeting to emphasise the important contribution of the chemical industry and endeavour to raise public awareness.

⌠Nothing in our modern world could exist without the ingenuity of chemists and chemical engineers. So why don't people celebrate this? I think to a degree we've only got ourselves to blame, said Crotty, a board member of Switzerland-headquartered INEOS.


The theme of the event was that more than 95% of the products used in everyday life rely on the chemical industry, whether it is in food, clothing, healthcare, transportation, communication, education or entertainment, he said.


MRC

(Arabian oil and gas) -- Saudi Kayan Petrochemical has started the commercial production at its petrochemical complex in Jubail Industrial City. The company said that main plants have started production, including the olefins plant, which produces 1.478m t/y of ethyelen and 630 KTa of propylene, in addition to an aromatics plan with a capacity of 109 KTa of benzene.

In addition, the company also started the commercial production of the 350 KTa polypropylene plant, 400 KTa polyethylene plant and the 260 KTa polycarbonate plant.

Mutlaq Hamad Al-Morished, chairman of Saudi Kayan and vice president of SABIC, corporate finance, said that the financial impact of the start of the commercial production will appear in the fourth quarter's financial results.

MRC

(Arabian oil and gas) -- Alujain Corporation has announced that a technical defect in the dehydrogenation unit in polypropylene complex owned by ALCO's subsidiary National Company for Petrochemical Industries (NATPET), has caused a shutdown of the facility. ⌠The work is underway to repair that defect and the production is expected to return in two weeks, the company said in a statement. ⌠This will cause the company a net loss of USD 24m equal to the production of 16 KT of polypropylene in that period, the statement added.

This is the third time this year that the company has faced technical issues. The company also announced earlier this year that its polypropylene plant faced a technical problem at the dehydrogenation unit on the 18th of January, with repair work taking five days. As a consequence of this shutdown, NatPet failed to produce 3,5 KT of polypropylene worth USD 5 million.

MRC

(Reuters) -- State-owned Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI) will receive funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to build and develop Vietnam's second oil refinery, its chairman was reported as saying on Friday. Hussein Ismail told Kuwait's state news agency KUNA that building the 200,000-bpd Nghi Son oil refinery is part of Kuwait's strategy to invest in large-scale refining and petrochemicals projects in East Asia. No figure was given for the funding.

The refinery, situated in the northern province of Thanh Hoa, 215 km south of Hanoi, is a joint venture between KPI, Petrovietnam Construction Corp and Japan's Idemitsu Kosan Co and Mitsui Chemicals. The project is expected to be completed and ready for operation in 2015, KUNA said.

KPI, an international unit of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), established the joint venture in April 2008 to build the refinery, which is designed to process Kuwaiti crude.

Investment in the refinery would total USD 7.5 billion.

MRC

(CapitalVue) -- Sinopec's parent company, Sinopec Group, plans to invest 100 billion yuan in Fujian province over the next 10 years, reports the Oriental Morning Post. It signed an agreement with the Fujian provincial government on September 26 to develop the petrochemical industry in the coastal province.

Sinopec Group will help Fujian Lianhe Petrochemical solve technical problems in its ethylene factories, expand capacity at the oil refineries of Sinopec Fujian Refinery Industry and Gulei Refinery Industry. Sinopec Group will also build a sales network of refined oil, natural gas and caprolactam.

Fujian governor Su Shuling said the petrochemical industry will become the one of the three pillar industries in the province.

MRC