Mitsui to license polyurethane technology to SABIC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) signed a TDI and MDI technology license agreement with Mitsui Chemicals under which Mitsui will provide manufacturing technology for producing TDI and MDI. The firms say they will explore future possibilities to collaborate in the polyurethane (PU) business.

The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) signed a TDI and MDI technology license agreement with Mitsui Chemicals under which Mitsui will provide manufacturing technology for producing TDI and MDI. Toluene di-isocyanate (TDI) and methylene di-phenyl isocynate (MDI) are each raw materials for producing polyurethane.

The agreement also provides for joint technology development in TDI/MDI, officials said. The agreement was signed by Mohamed Al-Mady, SABIC chief executive, and Toshikazu Tanaka, Mitsui Chemicals CEO, at SABIC's headquarters in Riyadh on February 26.

Al-Mady said that it would spearhead a strategic collaboration between the two companies to explore future possibilities to collaborate in the polyurethane (PU) business.

MRC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- Foster Wheeler has been awarded a contract by Lukoil for the supply of a waste heat boiler for the Nizhegorodnefteorgsyntez refinery located in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Russia. Foster Wheeler's scope of work is scheduled to be completed by March 2013, it said.

Foster Wheeler has been awarded a contract by Lukoil for the supply of a waste heat boiler for the Nizhegorodnefteorgsyntez refinery located in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Russia.

The value of Foster Wheeler's contract was not disclosed and was included in the company's fourth-quarter 2011 bookings. The waste heat boiler will be installed downstream of a fluid catalytic cracking unit, enabling the production of gasoline that is intended to meet European Union Euro-5 standards.

Foster Wheeler has supplied a similar unit to the refinery, which unit has been in operation since 2010 to Lukoil's full satisfaction.Foster Wheeler's scope of work is scheduled to be completed by March 2013, it said.


MRC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- Prices of ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel - already at record highs for this time of year - could spike higher if Sunoco goes ahead with plans to shut its 335,000 bpd Philadelphia refinery in July if no buyer is found, US government forecasters warned in a new report issued this week.

Prices of ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel - already at record highs for this time of year - could spike higher if Sunoco goes ahead with plans to shut its 335,000 bpd Philadelphia refinery in July if no buyer is found, US government forecasters warned in a report.

The plant made up 24% of the refining capacity on the densely populated East Coast as of August, the Energy Information Administration said. Since September, ConocoPhillips shut its 185,000 bpd Trainer, Pa., refinery and Sunoco shuttered its 178,000 bpd Marcus Hook, Pa., refinery.

Those refineries, plus the Sunoco Philadelphia plant, make up 50% of East Coast refining capacity. Additionally, Hovensa, a 350,000 bpd joint venture refinery operated by Hess and Venezuela's state owned Petroleos de Venezuela, which supplied refined products to the East Coast, was shut last week.

"To date, the market transition following the closing of two Philadelphia-area refineries in September and December 2011 has been relatively smooth, but the situation could change," the EIA warned. The closures have been partially offset by the startup of PBF Energy's 182,000 bpd Delaware City refinery in October 2011, which had been shut down in late 2009 by Valero before its sale to PBF Energy, the EIA said.

"However, if Sunoco's Philadelphia refinery, which alone accounted for nearly a quarter of refinery capacity on the East Coast in 2011, were to shut down in July 2012, petroleum product markets in the Northeast could be significantly impacted."

While refining capacity outside the East Coast exists to replace the idled capacity, "transportation constraints may hinder the delivery of products to the Northeast in the short term," the EIA said.



MRC

(news.szenergy) -- A Great Wall in energy relations between China and Russia seems to be crumbling. Kommersant says, Rosneft, oil pipeline monopoly Transneft and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) have settled a year long dispute over oil supplies to China.

Rosneft and Transneft agreed to give CNPC a discount of USD1.5 per barrel. The deal will be signed retroactively with discount taking effect from November 2011. CNPC agreed to pay its overdue debt of USD134mln for oil deliveries since the beginning of 2011. According to Kommersant, CNPC already paid off the debt in mid January.

In 2009, the China Development Bank agreed to lend Rosneft and Transneft USD15 and USD10 bln respectively. The two Russian companies were obliged to deliver 15mln tones of oil to China annually during 2011-2030 via the East Siberian-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline.

However, in 2011 it turned out that China and Russia estimated the logistic costs differently. As a result, CNPC paid USD13 per barrel less than Transneft expected. If the situation continued, Russia could have lost almost USD30bln by 2030.

Since 2011, the energy issue was a matter of concern in Sino-Russia relations. The countries decided to set up an inter-governmental panel to tackle the problem. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin took part in the negotiations.

Oil supplies are crucial to the Chinese economy. China's industrial energy conservation plan for 2011-2015 suggests a saving of approximately 670 million tons of coal per year to reduce emissions. Thus, the importance of other energy sources will grow.

As a result of the agreement, Rosneft is expected to loose USD3bln. However, the Russian company sees the outcomes of the negotiations as beneficial as the Chinese demanded a USD13.5 discount, which was almost ten times as much. The market also applauded the results, as Rosneft shares gained 1.7% on the MICEX.

To approve the amendments, Rosneft is expected to call a board meeting on February 28, and extraordinary shareholders' meeting on 9 April. The Board of Transneft approved the amendments on February 22.

Representatives from Rosneft, Transneft, and CNPC, were not available for comment.

MRC

(jeccomposites) -- PlastiCell displayed a demonstrator dedicated to the laser welding of thermoplastic and thin composites sheets. This R&D tool was developed with Innoptics, a startup which specializes in the design and manufacturing of laser diode-based components and subsystems.

Instead of scanning at high speed with a laser spot using galvanometric mirrors as is generally done today, the polymer matrix is softened by moving a highly homogeneous laser line over the overlapping sheets. The laser beam exits the laser head through a light guide which also applies pressure over the sheets and cools down the surface of the upper sheet. This unique design makes the welds as strong as the constituent material. Moreover, they are almost invisible from the outside. This year, PlastiCell will display the new laser head developed with INNOPTICS, which is smaller, lighter but above all much faster than the first one.

This technique is used to produce honeycomb blocks out of any thermoplastic material supplied in the form of a thin sheet reinforced or not with glass fibres or webs. The sheet can be watertight or porous or even perforated. The density of the honeycomb material results from the cell size and the area weight of the plastic sheet. Densities as low as 30 kg/m3 were easily reached with an 8.7-mm hexagonal cell width.


Honeycomb is mainly used as a core for sandwich panels, a construction offering a remarkable strength-to-weight ratio.


MRC