Laffan Refinery faced an outage that caused a temporarily shutdown of the facility

(Arabian oil and gas) -- Laffan Refinery has faced an outage that caused a temporarily shutdown of the facility, a spokesperson from QatarGas said. ⌠Qatargas can confirm that there was an outage at Laffan Refinery. The Refinery was safely shutdown as a result and a full investigation has taken place. The Refinery is being restarted safely at this time, Qatargas spokespersons said. The spokesperson didn't give further details about the shutdown and the expected time to resume production.


Qatar's first condensate refinery, which started production in September 2009, can produce 61,000 bpd of naphtha, 52,000 bpd of kerojet, 24,000 bpd of gasoil and 9,000 bpd of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) when fully operational.


MRC

Borealis was recently awarded the Frost & Sullivan 2011 Europe Product Leadership Award

(Borealis) -- Borealis, a leading provider of chemical and innovative plastics solutions, was presented with the Frost & Sullivan 2011 Europe Product Leadership Award in HVDC Cable Insulation Market during an awards banquet in London on September 29, 2011.


The Product Leadership Award is a prestigious recognition of Borealis' accomplishments in the HVDC cable insulation market, where Borealis has played a pioneering role by introducing crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) based insulation compound Borealis Superclean LE4253DC.


As a result of its high electrical breakdown properties, Superclean LE4253DC brings performance reliability improvements to HVDC cables. The compound offers the right balance between space charge accumulation, conductivity and DC breakdown strength and allows cost effective manufacturing in conventional CV lines. HVDC cables made with LE4253DC/LE0550DC from Borealis are qualified and meet Cigre recommendations.


MRC

In Ukraine PVC production grew in the third quarter

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Ukrainian producer Karpatneftechem is increasing suspension PVC production. In the third quarter, overall production of PVC-S made 43.5 KT, as per MRC DataScope. Ukrainian Karpatneftechem (Lukoil Group) keeps on increasing suspension PVC output. In September overall output of the resin made 15.4 KT. Over the last three months, the enterprise produced 43.5 KT of suspension PVC. Over incomplete five operating months, overall output exceeded 53.6 KT. In October a further growth of PVC production in Ukraine is expected. By the end of the year Karpatneftechem is targeting at project capacity of 300 KTa.


Exports is growing along with production. Over the last two months, exports of the Ukrainian PVC exceeded 10 KT. Poor external markets and transport problems, particularly, during supplies to Russia, restrain export sales. Nevertheless, the company management plans to increase exports to 150 KT (to Russia), 20 KT (to the Eastern Europe) and 30 KT (to Turkey).


Investments to Karpatneftechem PVC plant made $234 mln. The enterprise also plans to start production of goods out of PVC-S. Lukoil has already invested more than $500 mln in Karpatneftechem. The president of the company Vagit Alekperov announced to invest yet $500 mln in development of operating enterprises and creation of production of PVC finished goods.


MRC

Sinopec started work on petchem complex in southwest China

(Platts) -- State-owned China Petrochemical Corp., or Sinopec Group, and the provincial government of Guizhou has launched a coal-based petrochemical project in southwest China, which involves the oil major investing Yuan 18 billion ($2.8 billion) for the first phase of the project.


The groundbreaking ceremony for the project was held on Wednesday, according to a report by Sinopec published on its website on Friday.


In the first phase, Sinopec will build a 1.8 million mt/year coal-to-methanol complex, a 600,000 mt/year methanol-to-olefins unit, a 300,000 m


MRC

Kuwait petrochemical JV in China to set back

(Arabian oil and gas) -- A source close to Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) revealed that China has stipulated that KPC should pay USD 500m as guarantee to allow the lay down of the foundations related to the joint venture petrochemical complex in China, Kuwaiti local news paper al-Ray al-Aam reported.


⌠This condition is insuperable, which will oblige the company to go ahead with the project even if the feasibility study proves its un-feasibility, the newspaper quoted the source as saying. ⌠Shall KPC pay the money, as an installment of cost of the project, without having a strategic partner after the exit of Shell Chemicals, and without receiving the final approvals? - the source said.


He also added that the initial studies conducted by Foster Wheeler related to a seperate refinery project in Vietnam cost only USD 45m without paying an installment.


MRC