OPaL aims to start up new PP plant by end-May after procuring feedstock

MOSCOW (MRC) -- India's ONGC Petro additions Limited aims to start up its 340,000 mt/year polypropylene (PP) plant in Dahej Special Economic Zone, Gujarat, by end-May and is currently procuring feedstock propylene from the spot market, reported Apic-online with reference to a company source.

As reported earlier, the company was trying to start up the PP plant in mid-April.

"We will definitely start pre-marketing material but commercial on spec material may take a month to produce from the plant start up," the source said.

The plant's start-up had been delayed earlier due to high project costs.

It was heard that the company was looking for new shareholders but this could not be confirmed with the source.

OPaL is initially starting the PP plant in isolation, and then hopes to bring on stream its new steam cracker and new polyethylene (PE) units by mid-July, according to the source.

The company is building two 360,000 mt/year high density polyethylene/linear low density polyethylene (HDPE/LLDPE) swing units and a 340,000 mt/year standalone HDPE unit. Commercial production is expected to start two or three months from the start up, given that it is a new plant and needs time for production to stabilize, the source added.

The dual-feed cracker has the capacity to produce 1.1 million mt/year of ethylene and 400,000 mt/year of propylene. Associated units include a 150,000 mt/year benzene extraction unit and a 115,000 mt/year butadiene unit.

The new units will produce the following HDPE grades - injection, pipe, blow moulding, film and raffia/mono filament; and LLDPE grades - film, roto moulding, lamination and injection moulding.

As MRC wrote previously, in November 2015, Kuwait's Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC) said it was close to signing a deal to acquire 45% of the OpaL chemical factory in India.Tthe company's chief executive Asaad Al-Saad attributed delays in the completion of the deal to tough Indian laws, but said he was optimistic due to the support of India's government and the strength of its economy.

OPaL is a joint venture of Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC - 26%), Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL - 17%) and Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. (GSPC - 5%), with the balance held by other investors and public shares.
MRC

ExxonMobil reports death of contractor in work at Beaumont refinery

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A 37-year-old contract worker from Brownsville, Texas, died early Wednesday morning near a unit under maintenance at ExxonMobil's Beaumont refinery, according to a report by the Beaumont Enterprise newspaper, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The worker was struck in the head and neck area by piping that was being removed from a heat exchanger, a local sheriff's office spokesperson said, according to the report.

The man was pronounced dead shortly before 1 a.m. local time. His name has yet to be released.

Three people witnessed the accident, and a fire department dispatcher said emergency crews were called at 12:28 a.m., according to the Beaumont Enterprise.

The employee reportedly worked for AltairStrickland, an industrial engineering group based in Deer Park. AltairStrickland specializes in process unit turnarounds.

ExxonMobil's Beaumont refinery processes 365,000 bpd of crude, according to its website. The company also operates chemicals, polyethylene (PE) and lube plants in Beaumont, employing 2,000 workers and more than 1,000 contractors.

As MRC informed previously, ExxonMobil is studying a proposal to expand its 334,600-bpd refinery in Beaumont, Texas, into the largest in the US. ExxonMobil has pulled together a group of experts at the plant to do more detailed studies on potentially adding a third crude distillation unit (CDU). The new CDU could make the Beaumont refinery the largest in the US, with capacity rising to as much as 850,000 bpd.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC

JG Summit took off-stream PP plant in Philippines

MOSCOW (MRC) -- JG Summit Petrochemical has shut its polypropylene (PP) plant for a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Philippines informed that the company has taken off-line its plant on May 6, 2016. The plant is expected to remain shut unit end-May 2016.

Located at Batangas in the Philippines, the plant has a production capacity of 190,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, SK Global Chemical had scheduled a maintenance turnaround at its PP plants in H2 2016. A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that the plants are planned to be shut in September-October 2016. It is likely to remain off-stream for around 30-40 days. Located in Ulsan, South Korea, the No.1 PP plant has a production capacity of 183,000 mt/year and No.2 PP plant has a production capacity of 193,000 mt/year.
MRC

Chemson Pacific announces 3DVinyl, the first 3D printable PVC filament

МOSCOW (MRC) -- In recent years, many filament manufacturers have set their sights on adopting those durable and low-cost plastics that are already widely used throughout society, said 3ders.

And for a long time, one of those plastics has been conspicuously absent from the list of 3D printable materials: PVC. The third most used plastic in the world, PVC is very durable, cheap, very resistant to the elements and fire retardant. Perfect, you’d think, for 3D printers. Fortunately, Australian PVC developer Chemson Pacific has now produced a 3D printable version of PVC called 3DVinyl.

Chemson Pacific is the Australian branch of the Chemson Group, and is specialized in developing and producing non-toxic and non-heavy metal stabilizer plastics. They usually work with PVC, and have previously developed several industrial PVC applications. Using all that expertise, they say, they have now been able to produce an all-Australian 3D printable PVC filament.

As they reveal to 3ders.org, 3DVinyl would not even be here if it wasn’t for one temporary lab technician called Dennis Planner. A big fan of 3D printing, he approached colleague Greg Harrison and asked him why Chemson wasn’t involved in 3D printing.

Over a two year R&D period, which involved various experts such as Dr. Leo Hyde of DuPont, Marc Jolivet of PMMCO and experts from AIO Robotics, this grew into 3DVinyl. And as the company explains, they feel that their custom PVC formulation can bring truly thermoplastic properties to 3D printing. It has the power, they say, to significantly broaden the list of 3D printing applications, and is suitable for both home users and industrial manufacturing environments. Copying all the key properties of PVC, 3DVinyl filament is UV and solvent resistant, weatherproof, "Group 1" Fire retardant (capable of AS3837 compliance), and requires 50 per cent fewer fossil fuel inputs than many other filaments ((3DVinyl uses abundant natural gas while some incumbents are derived from crude oil). Its also very rigid, features excellent flow properties and heat stability, and doesn’t even suffer from warping or poor bed adhesion. 3D Vinyl also produces fantastic support structures.


MRC

PetroChina posts first quarterly loss as oil prices weigh

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PetroChina Co Ltd, the country's largest oil and gas producer, has reported its first ever quarterly loss as oil prices touched near 13-year lows, and forecast continued volatility in the market, as per Reuters.

Faced with the worst downturn in the oil sector in at least three decades, state-run PetroChina posted a net loss in the first three months 2016 of 13.79 billion yuan (USD2.13 billion), compared with a profit of 6.15 billion yuan a year earlier.

In the first quarter of 2016, the average realized price for crude oil of the group was USD27.27 per barrel, of which the domestic realized price was USD26.55 per barrel, representing a drop of 44.2 percent from the same period a year earlier.

The company expects that for the rest of the year the supply and demand fundamentals will remain loose. "International oil prices will widely fluctuate at a low level," the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

A prolonged fall in oil prices has weighed on the industry, with U.S. giant Exxon Mobil this week losing its top credit rating from Standard & Poor's for the first time in almost 70 years and British oil company BP reporting an 80 percent drop in first-quarter profits.

PetroChina expects total crude output this year of 924.7 million barrels.

As MRC reported earlier, in February 2016, Chinese oil giant PetroChina Co. said it expects little rebound in global oil prices this year as jockeying for position among top oil producers intensifies.

PetroChina Company Limited, is a Chinese oil and gas company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing. It is China's biggest oil producer.
MRC