LyondellBasell's refining, petrochem units operating as per planned

(Plastemart) -- LyondellBasell Industries' 105,000 bpd Berre l'Etang refining and petrochemicals units, located in southern France oil terminal, are operating as planned. Regarding demurrage costs for LyondellBasell Industries' tankers, a company spokesperson said shipment details cannot be discussed for safety and security reasons.

A 13 day long strike has blocked sea access to the Fos-Lavera oil port, the world's third-biggest port with annual traffic of around 60 mln metric tons. The action against local implementation of a national harbor reform is preventing the unloading of 51 ships including 11 natural gas tankers, 19 crude oil tankers, 15 refined oil products tankers, three chemical products tankers and three barges.

Refineries situated in the Fos-Lavera region include Total SA's 158,000 bpd La Mede refinery, Exxon Mobil Corp's 119,000 bpd Fos-sur-Mer plant, LyondellBasell Industries' Berre l'Etang refinery, and Ineos PLC's 207,000 bpd Lavera plant.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- South Korea's Honam Petrochemical Corp. and Japan's Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. plan to build a polypropylene (PP) catalyst plant by the end of 2012. The plant to be built in Yeosu, will annually produce 100 tons of catalysts for the production of polypropylene (PP). The two companies will each invest 10 billion won (US$8.9 mln) to build the plant.

Honam Petrochemical said the plant will strengthen its competitive edge at home and abroad.

Only some global petrochemical makers, like Mitsubishi Chemical and Germany's BASF, have the technologies to produce catalysts for PP.

Honam Petrochemical, South Korea's top and Asia's No. 2 PP producer with an annual production capacity of 1.4 mln tons, said it will consume half of the catalysts to be produced at the plant.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- Petrologistics - US propylene producer, is to begin feeding its new 500,000 tpa propane dehydrogenation unit in Houston, Texas as per Platts. Start up was originally planned for late August/early September, but was deferred due to mechanical setbacks. Initial production is expected to be 70% CGP and 30% PGP.

Propylene contracts in the US could be under further downward pressure given the additional supply. US contracts were set to fall 1.5 cents in October as many participants in the negotiation process were heard to have agreed to the decrease.

MRC

SHANGHAI (ICIS) -- China's major coal producer, Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co, has achieved on-spec propylene at its methanol-to-propylene (MTP) plant in northwestern Ningxia province, a company source said on Monday.

The company started trial runs at the unit - with a name plate capacity of 470,000 tonnes/year - on 6 September and achieved on-spec product on 4 October, the source added.

"Actually, the MTP unit has a production capacity of 490,000 tonnes/year of propylene and other by-products like gasoline and ethylene in small volumes, the source said.

In addition to the MTP unit, the complex will also produce 1.67m tonnes/year of methanol and 500,000 tonnes/year of polypropylene (PP) once it is fully operational.

Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co is a joint venture between the Ningxia provincial government and China's largest coal producer Shenhua Group Corp, with 49% and 51% stake-holding, respectively.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Formosa Petrochemical Corp No. 2 naphtha cracker will shut today for a 40-day planned maintenance. Meanwhile one of the Taiwanese majors' other three crude distillation units, shut in late July following an outage, will restart around mid-October.

Formosa was impacted by two separate fires in July- one at its 700,000 tpa No. 1 cracker in early July, and another at its 540,000 bpd refinery late that month. Due to the outage at its No.1 unit, Formosa had delayed the maintenance at its No. 2 cracker to early October from Aug. 20. Two CDUs were brought back online on July 29 and Aug. 3, and are running at around 90% capacity.

MRC