KBR was awarded a contract to revamp the North Fertilizer Plant

(Arabian oil and gas) -- KBR has been awarded a contract by Iraq's First Global Company to revamp the North Fertilizer Plant in Baiji, Iraq. Under the terms of the contract, KBR will provide a license for its proprietary Ammonia Process and related engineering services to increase the plant capacity to 120 % of the original design. The original plant, which started up in 1989 was designed to produce 1000 t/day Ammonia.

⌠KBR is proud to have the opportunity to work with First Global Company to revamp the North Fertilizer Plant, said John Derbyshire, President, KBR Technology. ⌠Helping our licensors debottleneck their plants and achieve greater production capacities and process efficiencies is one of our core competencies and will be an area of significant growth worldwide.

MRC

(The Guardian) -- A controversial chemical plant in north-east China is believed to have quietly resumed production just months after officials promised to halt operations and move the facility. The Fujia Petrochemical PX plant in Dalian was shut down after more than 10,000 people took to the streets on 14 August 2011 to demand its relocation on public safety grounds.

In a bid to placate the urban, middle-class crowd, Dalian city leaders announced that they would move the factory to an industrial park on Xizhong Island. The demonstration was one of the biggest seen in China in recent years and its outcome was seen as a major victory for environmental campaigners, who thought they had seen the end of the PX plant. But there are growing fears that the authorities are back-tracking.

In early December, an apparently leaked document was circulated online that suggested the plant has passed fresh safety checks and is preparing to resume production. A few weeks later, a government official told local reporters that the factory was once again in operation. Locals report smoke billowing up from the plant's chimney and workers commuting as usual for their shifts. This may just be for maintenance. Domestic media have reported a resumption of business, but their stories have been removed from websites. The government and the factory declined to confirm or deny the reports.

Domestic critics believe the authorities may be having second thoughts because the factory has been licensed for several years and its closure would result in a significant loss of income and a large compensation payout for breach of contract. The USD1.5bn plant is jointly owned by the city and the private company, Fujia. It is one of the 10 biggest factories in Dalian, generating tax revenues of almost 200 mln pounds a year.


The Fujia petrochemical plant has the capacity to produce 700,000 tonnes of paraxylene (PX), a benzene-based chemical widely used in plastic bottles and polyester clothing.

MRC

(PlastEurope) -- Toray Industries (Tokyo/Japan) has taken full control of French carbon fibre producer Soficar (Paris), acquiring the 30% stake held by Arkema (Paris). The company, operated by the Japanese partner as the strategic base for its composites business in Europe, has been renamed Toray Carbon Fibers Europe. Soficar currently produces 5,200 t/y of carbon fibre at sites in Japan, France and the US. A new plant will go on stream in South Korea in 2013.

After taking full control of its European arm, Toray said it plans to ⌠further accelerate the integration of the value chain for its ⌠Torayca fibre. New production lines will be built for fibre precursors and prepregs used in aeronautics applications, and carbonisation capacity also will be expanded.

The Japanese group estimates that global demand for polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fibre in 2011 totalled nearly 40,000 t. Going forward, it forecasts annual growth rates exceeding 15%.

MRC

(SIBUR) -- Construction and installation of the second phase for the production of Alphapor expandable polystyrene has been completed, and startup operations have commenced. Trial manufacture of expandable polystyrene is planned to begin in spring 2012. The second phase is expected to be able to produce 50,000 tonnes a year by the summer of 2012.

The official startup of the first stage of production of 50,000 tonnes per year of expandable polystyrene took place at the end of 2010. During 2011 production was based on projected capacity and sales volume. Total projected production capacity of expandable polystyrene at SIBUR's Perm site after completion of the second stage of the complex will reach 100,000 tonnes per year.

AlphaporM expandable polystyrene is produced using the technology of the Austro-Norwegian Company Sunpor. The product is employed in a wide variety of uses, including energy-efficient building insulation, permanent shuttering, and packaging for household appliances and food products. The major world markets for construction-grade polystyrene foam are the USA and Europe (France, Italy, Germany and Poland).

All grades of Alphapor expandable polystyrene comply with strict European standards for fire safety, grain-size distribution, density and stress-strain properties. The grades of expandable polystyrene used in the production of building insulation are required to contain fire-retardant antipyrenes.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Spot liquidity in the northeast Asian propylene (C3) market may rise this year, as some buyers in China plan to reduce their contractual commitments given high premiums being sought by traders, market sources said on Tuesday. Traders are asking premiums of as high as USD40-50/tonne (EUR32-40/tonne) above the published CFR (cost and freight) northeast (NE) Asia prices for 2012 settlements, roughly double those recorded for last year's contracts with Chinese buyers, they said. In 2011, propylene contracts with buyers in China - Asia's largest spot consumer - had premiums averaging USD20-30/tonne.

China imported around 1.55m tonnes of propylene in January to November 2011, exceeding the 1.52m tonnes the country took in for the whole of 2010, according to official data. ⌠The [propylene contract] premiums are very high this year - some are asking as much as USD50/tonne, which is not acceptable, said one Chinese propylene importer. ⌠We are likely to buy more propylene from the spot market because it is tough to negotiate the contracts, he added.

Traders said that volatile feedstock naphtha prices and the increased procurement costs of getting term supplies from South Korea - a key exporter of propylene in Asia - justify the sharp premium increase. Some South Korean producers have locked in 2012 contracts with regional traders at a discount to CFR NE Asia prices.

MRC