Idemitsu Kosan to shut down SM plant in Japan for maintenance

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Idemitsu Kosan, one of Japan’s largest refining and petrochemical companies, is likely to shut its styrene monomer (SM) plant for a maintenance turnaround, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed that the SM plant is planned to be shut in April 2015. It is expected to remain off-stream for around three months.

Located at Chiba in Japan, the SM plant has a production capacity of 210,000 mt/yr.

As MRC informed before, Idemitsu Kosan also will be shutting its refinery in Japan for maintenance turnaround in April 2015. It is likely to remain off-stream for around one month. Located at Chiba in Japan, the refinery has a crude processing capacity of 220,000 bpd.

Idemitsu Kosan is a Japanese petroleum company. It owns and operates oil platforms, refineries and produces and sells petroleum, oils and petrochemical products. The company runs two petrochemical plants in Chiba and Tokuyama. The two naphtha crackers can produce up to 997,000 tonnes of ethylene per year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Equate Petrochemical Company, Kuwait’s first international petrochemical joint venture, posted a decline in net profit to USD1.04 billion for the fiscal 2014, compared to USD1.245 billion achieved in 2013, said Tradearabia.

"Taking into consideration that 2014 was filled with challenges and developments, these results are extremely positive," said Equate president and CEO Mohammad Husain.

Husain said the year 2014 included a number of serious challenges that faced the hydrocarbon industry as a whole, including the petrochemical sector. "For example, the drop of oil prices in global markets by over 40 per cent within a three-month timeframe, shortage of feedstock required for the petrochemical industry, fluctuating international prices, increasing demand despite drop in prices, as well as lack of opportunities for growth and expansion."

The year recorded major highlights in Equate's history, including its one-month turnaround for ethylene, polyethylene, ethylene glycol and utilities units. In addition, it finished the first phase of the polyethylene debottlenecking project to increase the production capacity from 825,000 tonnes annually to almost 1 million tonnes.

Equate set a new world record by completing turnaround and debottlenecking project within 30 days, he said. "With that said, we must take into consideration that those 30 days did not witnesses any sales or commercial operations relevant to products. At the same time, there were extraordinary costs that had to be accounted for. Based on that, the company dealt with 2014 on the basis of being a 11-month year while meeting the commitments of 12 months," Hasain clarified.

As MRC wrote before, Equate Petrochemical Company said that Gulf petrochemical investments exceeded USD250 billion by 2015.

Equate is an international joint venture between Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), The Dow Chemical Company (Dow), Boubyan Petrochemical Company (BPC) and Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company (QPIC). Equate is the single operator of a fully integrated world-scale manufacturing facility producing over 5 million tons annually of high-quality petrochemical products, such as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), styrene monomer, ethylene glycol and palaxylene, which are marketed throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe.
mrcplsat.com

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lorestan Petrochemical is in plans to shut a linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant for maintenance turnaround, informed Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Iran informed that the plant is likely to be shut in March 2015. The duration of the turnaround could not be ascertained.

Located in Iran, the plant has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed previously, it has been more than 50 years that Iran started producing petrochemical products and Iran National Petrochemical Company (NPC) is celebrating its anniversary this year.

Iran, as one of the main energy hubs in the world, with huge oil and gas reserves, is one of the leading producers of petrochemical products in the world.

In 2006, the total consumption of different polymer products was 202 million metric tons and it is estimated this figure reach to 316 million metric ton by 2016. This means only countries with huge feeding materials can be successful on raising production level, and gladly Iran is among one of those countries.

Currently number of active Iranian Petrochemical complexes are 53, with total production capacity of 59 million metric ton, producing range of polymers, chemicals, aromatics & liquid gas, located mainly at Iranian south region, next to Persian Gulf, called Assaluyeh and Mahshahr Special Economic Zones.

At the moment, there are 67 developments projects in the country which are under construction, adding 61 million metric ton on total production and estimated to fully run till 2018.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Arabia's Advanced Petrochemical plans to shut its propylene and polypropylene plant in March for three weeks for scheduled maintenance, as per TradeArabia.

The plant, in Jubail on the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia, will go offline on March 1, it said in a bourse statement, adding that any impact from the shutdown would be reflected in the first quarter.

As MRC reported earlier, in early February 2015, Advanced Petrochemical Company announced the signing of long-term off-take agreements on January 29, 2015 for the sale of Polypropylene with Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan (150,000 metric ton per annum) and Domo Investment Group of Belgium (100,000 metric ton per annum), to be effective from January 1, 2019 for a period of ten years after the expiry of existing off-take agreements.

Advanced Petrochemical Company (before Advanced Polypropylene) is a Saudi Joint Stock Company, established in October 2005. The company was initially launched by National Polypropylene Limited, jointly owned by Mr. Khalifa Al Mulhim, the chief executive officer of Advanced, and Mr. Monther Laheeq, who negotiated all the main deals related to the project, either before or after the establishment of Advanced Petrochemical. Currently, National Polypropylene Limited controls 7.9% of Advanced Petrochemical. Advanced Petrochemical started the construction of its plants in May 2005. The company produces 455,000 tons per year of propylene and 450,000 tons per year of polypropylene from its production facility located in Jubail Industrial City, in the Eastern coast of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the world’s largest petrochemicals maker by sales, named Yousef Al-Benyan acting chief executive officer after Mohammed Al-Mady stepped down to be president of Saudi Arabia’s Military Industries Corp., reported Bloomberg.

Al-Benyan will remain chief financial officer until Sabic’s board decides on a permanent CEO, Mohammed Al Motawa, a company spokesman, said by phone.

King Salman bin Abdulaziz yesterday appointed Al-Mady president of Military Industries Corp. at the request of Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman.

As MRC informed previously, in 2013, Sabic opened a new engineering thermoplastics compounding facility and a polypropylene compounding plant at its manufacturing facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. The products to be manufactured at the new facilities are aimed for the consumer electronics, healthcare, transportation, building and construction industries.

Sabic is ranked among the world's largest petrochemicals manufacturers. It is the largest public company in Saudi Arabia. The comany manufactures chemicals and intermediates, industrial polymers, fertilizers and metals. It is currently the second largest global ethylene glycol producer, the third largest polyethylene manufacturer, the fourth largest polyolefins manufacturer and the fourth largest polypropylene manufacturer. Among its products are propylene, paraxylene, styrene, vinyl chloride monomer.
MRC