BP and DuPont launch biobutanol venture in USA

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BP and DuPont announced a joint venture to retrofit an ethanol plant in Minnesota to make biobutanol, a successor renewable fuel, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Highwater Ethanol licensed the technology from the companies’ venture, Butamax, for its technology to retrofit an ethanol plant. The facility will begin the first phase of commercial production, in which corn oil will be made, in the next few months, the company said in a statement.

"This is the next step in the road to commercialization," Paul Beckwith, the chief executive of Butamax, said in an interview.

The production of biobutanol, which is made from corn, is important because the company says it has lower greenhouse-gas emissions than corn-based ethanol and doesn’t present the same kind of refining issues.

Refiners such as Valero Energy say a drop in demand for gasoline means that the country is close to hitting the so-called "blendwall" of 10% mandated ethanol production.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, this summer, Saudi Butanol Company (Sabuco), a joint venture of local petrochemicals firms, awarded South Korea's Daelim Construction Co. a 1.1 billion riyal (USD293 million) contract to build a butanol plant. The Saudi Butanol Company, which will produce butanol to support the growth of the paints and coatings industry in Saudi Arabia, will be located at Tasnee Petrochemicals Complex. The construction of the plant in Jubail Industrial City will start in January 2014, with completion expected by May 2015. The plant will have a capacity of 330,000 tonnes a year of n-butanol, a type of alcohol used to make other chemicals, and 11,000 tonnes a year of iso-butanol.

BP is one of the world's leading international oil and gas companies, providing its customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, retail services and petrochemicals products for everyday items.

DuPont, an American chemical company, is the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalizatio and ninth based on revenue in 2012. DuPont businesses are organized into the following five categories, known as marketing "platforms": Electronic and Communication Technologies, Performance Materials, Coatings and Color Technologies, Safety and Protection, and Agriculture and Nutrition.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The US could surpass Russia as the world's largest combined producer of oil and gas this year, and may have done so already, said Upstreamonline.

As oil and gas production continues to skyrocket in the US on the back of unconventional forms of extraction, perennial world production leader Russia has struggled to maintain its output.

Last year, the US produced more natural gas than Russia for the first time since 1982, according the Journal's analysis of data from the International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration. Russia's gas-production estimates are below current US production levels of just under 70 billion cubic feet per day.

The data show that the US is also catching up to Russia in crude production. Russia produced an average of about 10.8 million barrels per day of oil in the first half of this year, just 900,000 bpd more than the US. That difference was 3 million bpd just a few years ago.

Fields in Texas and North Dakota continue to pump high volumes of crude, and North Dakota expects to double its current output by 2017. Meanwhile, oil production in Russia is expected to stay flat.

It is not clear when the US would overtake Russia, or if it already has. But if Russia's oil and gas wells produced at the same rates as they did last year, total daily US output would have surpassed them during the Northern Hemisphere summer.

It is not known how long US shale fields can continue producing, and Russia holds what is thought to be one of the world's largest shale deposits in the Bazhenov formation. And Saudi Arabia is still by far the world's biggest crude producer, though it contribute relatively little gas to the global economy.

Opec countries do not count themselves among the believers in the long-term staying power of the US as global production leader, with the organisation's leader saying this week that the US shale-oil boom will peter out by decade's end.

Still, it is a position the US could not have imagined being in just a few years ago.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A second regional council in Ukraine on Thursday approved a government draft for a USD10 billion shale gas production-sharing agreement with US supermajor Chevron, clearing the way for it to be signed, said Upstreamonline.

Deputies in Lviv region voted by 66-to-3 in favour of the draft, which calls for shale exploration in the Olesska block in the west of the country. A council in the neighbouring Ivano-Frankivsk region, whose approval was also necessary, backed the deal last month in a 62-to-1 vote with 11 abstentions.

"Now we will submit the documents to the Cabinet of Ministers and then there will be the signature," energy & fuel minister Eduard Stavytsky told the news wire.

Chevron won the auction for the Olesska block in May 2012. The Olesska deal with Chevron will be the second shale agreement in Ukraine, following one signed earlier this year with Anglo-Dutch supermajor Shell for exploration in Yuzivska in the east.

Shale exploration forms part of plans by Ukraine to diversify its energy sources and ease its dependence on costly natural gas imports from Russia. Speaking to the council, Stavytsky said on Thursday that Chevron would spend several years and USD350 million to assess reserves at Olesska which covers 5260 square kilometres.

Total investments including extraction after exploratory drilling could reach USD10 billion, he said. Deputies in both regions had expressed concern over the ecological consequences of hydraulic fracturing.

Stavytsky says the two shale gas projects could provide Ukraine with an additional 11 billion to 16 billion cubic metres of gas in five years' time.

Gas production in Ukraine totals about 20 Bcm, while the country of 46 million people consumes around 50 Bcm every year. Ukraine imports gas from Russia at about USD400 per 1000 cubic metres.

Ukraine has repeatedly said it wants to diversify energy imports and cut supply from Russia having failed to reach a compromise with Moscow on pricing.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Czech downstream oil group Unipetrol has acquired technology and production rights for a new polyethylene unit and wants to pick a contractor for the project in the first half of 2014, said Reuters.

The company, after posting net losses in 2011 and 2012, laid out plans in June to invest almost USD1 billion over the next five years and make its petrochemical segment the biggest contributor to profit.

"The construction of a new polyethylene unit is a key investment project in our medium-term strategy," Chief Executive Marek Switajewski said in a statement.

"Our first task is to choose a general contractor. We hope to do it in the first half of 2014."

Unipetrol said it signed a licence agreement with chemicals group Ineos for the right to use a production process and technology for the new polyethylene unit, which will help increase utilisation of its petrochemical steam cracker.

As part of its strategy, Unipetrol wants to increase the capacity utilisation of its steam cracker unit by 13% points and increase sales of petrochemical products by 11%, to 1.4 million tonnes, by 2017.

As MRC wrote before, Unipetrol (PKN Orlen's affiliate) expects petrochemicals to become the largest source of revenue for the company in 2013-2017. Unipetrol wants to use the favourable market conditions to reinforce its position on the petrochemical market and optimise its operations.

Unipetrol , a.s. is a group of companies operating in the petrochemical industry in the Czech Republic. In 2005 Unipetrol became a part of the PKN ORLEN Group, the largest oil processor in Central Europe. The UNIPETROL Group is oriented mostly towards oil processing, fuel distribution and petrochemical production. In all of these business areas the Unipetrol Group is among the key players both in the Czech Republic and on the Central European market. The Group ranks among the leading firms in the Czech Republic in terms of its revenues, and employs almost 4,000 people.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell and Oiltanking Stolthaven Antwerp today announced that Lyondell Chemie Nederland BV and Oiltanking Stolthaven Antwerp NV have signed a 10-year agreement for the storage and handling of Glacial Acetic Acid (GAA) and Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) in Antwerp, said the company in its press-release.

Oiltanking Stolthaven will invest in new stainless steel storage capacity and rail loading infrastructure at Antwerp.

GAA is one of the world's most essential intermediate chemicals. It is used to manufacture VAM, purified terephthalic acid, acetic anhydride, monochloroacetic acid and acetate esters. VAM is a chemical building block used to manufacture a wide variety of industrial and consumer products such as polyvinyl acetate for paints, adhesives and coatings. Polyvinyl alcohol is also used to make adhesives, coatings and water soluble packaging films. Polyvinyl acetals are used to produce insulation for magnetic wire, interlayers for safety glass, wash primers and coatings. Other related applications of ethylene vinyl acetate copolymers include flexible films, coatings, adhesives, moldings and insulation and packaging.

LyondellBasell is a global supplier of GAA and VAM. Its customers are served by a global storage and distribution network that spans North America, Europe and Asia.

As MRC wrote earlier, LyondellBasell has permanently shuttered one of its HDPE production lines at its German site in Wesseling – a step it said it would achieve in Q3. The line, which had a capacity of 100,000 t/y, was the smallest and least efficient at the production site.

LyondellBasell is one of the world's largest plastics, chemical and refining companies and a member of the S&P 500. LyondellBasell products and technologies are used to make items that improve the quality of life for people around the world including packaging, electronics, automotive parts, home furnishings, construction materials and biofuels.

Oiltanking Stolthaven Antwerp NV is a 50/50 joint venture company between Oiltanking GmbH and Stolthaven Terminals BV, a subsidiary of Stolt Nielsen Transportation Group. Oiltanking GmbH is a subsidiary of Marquard & Bahls AG, Germany, a leading petroleum company, privately owned. Oiltanking is the second largest independent tank storage provider for petroleum products, chemicals and gases worldwide.

MRC