Zhejiang Hengyi to build paraxylene plant in Brunei

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Zhejiang Hengyi will be building an aromatics plant in the southeast Asian nation of Brunei. This will be the country's first aromatics plant, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the plant is scheduled for completion in 2016.

To be located in Pukau Muara Besar, Brunei, the aromatics plant will have a paraxylene (PX) production capacity of 1.5 million mt/year and benzene production capacity of 500,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, in April 2012, Zhejiang Hengyi signed a land lease agreement with the Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB) for its Integrated Refinery and Aromatics Cracker Project in Brunei Darussalam. The China Zhejiang Hengyi (Brunei) PMB Petrochemical Project at Pulau Muara Besar (PMB), Indonesia, is the largest investment project for a privately-owned Chinese company overseas.

Zhejiang Hengyi Group Co., Ltd. is a large private corporate group that has a highly integrated industry chain, with the production of purified terephthalic acid (PTA, a commodity chemical used to make polyester), polyester spinning and chemical fiber as its main businesses.
MRC

Dow Chemical 2Q net income soars on JV payment

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dow Chemical Co. said its second-quarter net income more than tripled, boosted by a USD2.16 billion payment related to a scrapped joint venture, and its adjusted results beat Wall Street predictions, said Cityherald.

The Midland, Mich.-based chemical company earned USD2.34 billion, or USD1.87 per share, for the three months ended June 30. That was up from USD649 million, or 55 cents per share, in the same quarter of 2012. Excluding the payment from Petrochemical Industries Company of Kuwait and other one-time items, Dow posted an adjusted profit of 64 cents per share.

Revenue was essentially flat at USD14.58 billion, compared with USD14.51 billion a year ago.

Analysts, on average, expected adjusted profit of 62 cents per share, on USD14.46 billion in revenue, according to FactSet.

Sales at the company's agricultural sciences business increased 10%, but were offset by declines at the company's feedstocks and energy and performance plastics businesses.

Overall sales volume increased 2%, with Latin American sales volume jumping 12 percent and Asia Pacific volume rising 7%. Overall pricing fell 2%.

As MRC wrote before, Dow Chemical signed a long-term ethylene off-take agreement with a new Japanese joint venture that will allow the chemical producer to enhance its performance plastics franchise. The joint venture is being formed between Japanese companies Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsui & Co. to construct and operate a Linear Alpha Olefins unit on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene (PS), polyurethane, polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and synthetic rubber. In 2012, Dow had annual sales of approximately USD57 billion. The Company's more than 5,000 products are manufactured at 188 sites in 36 countries across the globe.
MRC

INEOS signs agreement with Sasol for HDPE Joint Venture

MOSCOW (MRC) -- INEOS Olefins & Polymers USA and Sasol has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the intent to form a joint venture to manufacture high-density polyethylene (HDPE), reported INEOS on its site.

"This joint venture demonstrates INEOS’s continued commitment to the HDPE market and to growing end-use applications that benefit from bimodal technology. It enables two global companies to integrate with each partner’s upstream businesses the leading bimodal slurry technology on a world-scale asset," said Dennis Seith, CEO of INEOS Olefins & Polymers USA.

The envisioned facility would produce 470,000 tonnes per annum of bimodal HDPE using Innovene S process technology licensed from INEOS Technologies. The intention is to produce a limited number of grades allowing high grade efficiencies.

"This partnership will leverage the expertise of two global players in the chemical market. Together we will develop a world-scale HDPE plant which will allow us to monetize ethylene and supply a high quality product. The joint venture expands on our greater North American strategy and will complement the products produced from the ethane cracker and derivatives project in southwest Louisiana," said Andre de Ruyter, Sasol Senior Group Executive for Global Chemicals and North American Operations.

Final investment decision is expected to be made in the first half of 2014 with start-up of the plant expected at the end of 2015.

We remind that, as MRC informed previously, two of Europe’s biggest chemical companies have agreed a joint venture that will create one of the world’s largest producers of PVC plastics by revenues. Solvay, the Franco-Belgian chemicals company, will pool its European business that creates chlorvinyls – the base materials for PVC plastics – with that of privately owned rival Ineos Group , in a move that will eventually result in the Anglo-Swiss company taking full control of the joint venture.

Sasol Limited is an integrated energy and chemical company based in Johannesburg, South Africa. It develops and commercialises technologies, including synthetic fuels technologies, and produces different liquid fuels, chemicals and electricity.

INEOS is a global manufacturer of petrochemicals, speciality chemicals and oil products. It comprises 15 businesses each with a major chemical company heritage. Its production network spans 51 manufacturing facilities in 11 countries throughout the world.
MRC

TATNEFT projects implementation in Nizhnekamsk. half year results

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The works are now actively underway at the combined hydrocracking installation of the "TANECO" Refining and Petrochemical Plants Complex in Nizhnekamsk on the individual testing of the piping and equipment of the hydrocracker and hydrogen production sections, water block No.2 and interplant piping racks, said Yourpetrochemicalnews.

The implementation results of this and other projects administered by the Construction Projects Implementation Department of JSC TATNEFT (URPS) were discussed at the labor collective meeting held to review the operations results of the first half of 2013.

The employees of the Department have carried out a significant amount of construction, installation and commissioning works. A master plan for the development of the "TANECO" configuration has been approved, including the advanced refining complex, which embraces seven projects in the active phase of implementation. In the first instance it refers to the combined hydrocracking installation. At present the works are actively carried out here together with the specialists of JSC "TANECO" on the individual testing of the piping and equipment of the hydrocracker and hydrogen production sections, water block No.2 and interplant piping racks.

The URPS perform works at yet another significant facility of the Company: Nizhnekamsk CHP. After reconstruction the plant's installed capacity will increase from 380 MW to 730 MW, power generation will increase from 1.688 billion kWh to 5.055 billion kWh. As part of the reconstruction two new 110 megawatt turbines will be additionally put into operation. Two other turbines of 100 MW each will be reactivated. Today the URPS professionals are involved in erecting and closing the frame of the extension to the main building of the station, which will allow feeding heat into the premise and providing for execution of works in the cold season of the year. The plans envisage the start of the first turbine and the generator installation in the coming months.

Simultaneously, ground preparation works are underway for the construction of the designed units of naphtha, kerosene and diesel fuel hydrotreatment as well as the delayed coking unit. Geotechnical survey operations are in the process at the site of the delayed coking unit, kerosene and diesel fuel hydrotreaters. The work is carried out together with OOO "Nizhnekamsk CHP" to determine the flue gas treatment technology as well as the planned construction of the unit for burning of the CHP petroleum coke. Detailed engineering design of the aromatics complex has been started.

All these facilities are of great importance as they allow TATNEFT to change over to the advanced refining of raw materials and to expand the range of commodity products of the Oil Refining and Petrochemical Plants Complex in Nizhnekamsk.

As MRC wrote before, TATNEFT was named as the top downstream firm in Eastern Europe for 2012 by World Finance Magazine.

TATNEFT is a Russian vertically-integrated oil and gas company with headquarters in the city of Almetyevsk, in the Republic of Tatarstan. It is the sixth largest oil company in Russia.
MRC

Gazprom Neft and Total form JV to produce modified bitumen in Russia

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The St. Petersburg-headquartered Russian oil and gas company Gazprom Neft has signed an agreement with France-based Total to form a joint venture to produce and sell modified bitumen and bitumen emulsions on the Russian market, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to Gazprom Neft's statement.

Each partner will have a 50% stake in the joint venture, which will build a special production facility at Gazprom Neft's Moscow oil refinery.

The facility will have a capacity of 60,000 tonnes of polymer modified bitumens and 7,000 tonnes of bitumen emulsions per year.

We remind that, as MRC informed previously, in late 2012, Gazprom Neft and a Russian petrochemicals producer SIBUR with a head office in Moscow will collaborate in the polymer road materials production and marketing. SIBUR will deliver styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) polymers to the facilities of Gazprom Neft. The materials are applied in the polymer-bitumen binders (PBB) manufacturing to improve the quality characteristics of the road surface and extend its service life.
MRC