Williams to shut its cracker as part of precautionary measures

(Plastemart) -- Williams, olefins producer, plans to shut its 612,000 tpa steam cracker in Geismar, Louisiana, for one week in anticipation of tropical storm Isaac, which was moving west-northwestward over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and was about 255 miles south-southwest of Apalachicola, Florida, and about 300 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. These steps were undertaken by the company as part of precautionary measures.

Other refinery shutdowns in Louisiana announced earlier in the day were by Valero, Marathon and Phillips 66, among others, as well as Enterprise Products Partners' shutdown of two NGL fractionators and one gas processing plant in the state. Other producers were monitoring the situation before deciding on the next step.
MRC

(yarnsandfibers) -- Thailand's Indorama Ventures PCL (IVL.TH), the world's largest polyester chain producer by capacity, has temporarily shut down the polyester staple fiber section of its plant in eastern Rayong province after a fire broke out on the roof late Thursday.

The unit has been shut in order to investigate the cause of the fire and for maintenance, the company said in a filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand, adding that the fire was extinguished within 15 minutes.

"All other sections in the plant are running normally. There is no material damage to any of the assets or production line," it said, without elaborating on the production capacity.
MRC

(ccfgroup) -- China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, the country's largest oil refiner, said on Sunday that its net profits for the first half of the year dropped 40.5 percent year-on-year to 24.5 billion yuan (USD3.89 billion).

Earnings per share shrank 40.6 percent to 0.282 yuan from a year earlier, said the company in a statement filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The oil giant attributes the sharp decline in profits to significant rise in crude oil prices and restricted prices of gasoline and diesel products, which further worsened the company's loss from oil refining. The drop in the prices of petrochemical products has also reduced profits, it added.

Natural gas production surged 14.1 percent to 289.78 billion cubic feet from January to June, while sales of petrochemical products rose 4.2 percent to 26.15 million tons, it said.

Sinopec expected that the Chinese government will put more efforts on stabilizing growth in the second half of the year, which will bring more infrastructure investment and stimulus on consumption, and in turn gives rise to domestic demand of both refined oil products and petrochemical products.

PetroChina Co, another Chinese oil giant, said on Aug 23 that its net profits dropped 6 percent from a year earlier to 62.02 billion yuan in the first six months, due to government control over domestic refined oil prices and rising costs.

MRC

(plastemart) -- Japan's Mitsui Chemicals Inc plans to restart the 612,000 tpa naphtha cracker at its Ichihara plant in Chiba, a week after an unplanned shutdown, as it was reported earlier by MRC.

The cracker has been shut due to a problem with a power line, which cut off the electricity supply from Tokyo Electric Power Co early on August 21.

Mitsui Chemicals is a Japanese chemicals company. The company mainly deals in performance materials, petro and basic chemicals and functional polymeric materials.
MRC

(Moscow Times) -- Japan's Marubeni and Mitsui are negotiating with Rosneft the possibility of their participation in the oil company's petrochemical project in Nakhodka, Primorye region.

At the meeting of the Russian-Japanese working group on oil and gas cooperation it was also said that it was important to speed up negotiations between Rosneft and the Japanese consortium of Inpex and Mitsui for the joint development of deposits in the Irkutsk region close to the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline.

The petrochemical complex is expected to be commissioned in December 2016, cost about USD5 billion and process some 10 million tons of hydrocarbons per year.
MRC