US ethanol exports rise 26% in 2016 to second-highest level on record

МОСSCOW (MRC) -- The US exported more than 68,000 bpd of fuel ethanol in 2016, an increase of 26% from export levels in 2015, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

US imports of ethanol, which are relatively much smaller, decreased by 60% to 36 million gallons in 2016. The United States remained a net exporter of fuel ethanol for the seventh consecutive year, exporting ethanol to 34 different countries, with Asian and South American markets receiving the highest volumes.

In the United States, ethanol is primarily used as a blending component in the production of motor gasoline and mainly blended in volumes up to 10% ethanol, also known as E10. Corn is the primary feedstock of ethanol in the United States, and large corn harvests have contributed to increased ethanol production in recent years. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that the United States produced a record 15.1 billion bushels of corn in the 2016–17 harvest year, 11% more than the 2015–16 harvest.

US ethanol production reached a record level of 1 MMbpd in 2016. Volumes of domestic production beyond those used in US ethanol blending were exported in 2016, mainly to countries with ethanol mandates and those that use ethanol to increase octane levels.

Brazil surpassed Canada as the top destination for US fuel ethanol exports, receiving 267 MM gallons in 2016. Brazil is one of the world’s largest producers and consumers of fuel ethanol, but unlike the United States, Brazil’s main ethanol feedstock is sugarcane. Relatively high global sugar prices during 2016 encouraged more sugar production over sugarcane ethanol production. Corn ethanol exports to Brazil were further encouraged by Brazil’s 27% fuel ethanol mandate and its zero import tariff for ethanol, which will remain in place through the end of 2021.

China, the third-highest export destination, received 179 million gallons of US fuel ethanol in 2016, as US ethanol remained an attractive option for meeting Chinese ethanol blending mandates. Exports from the United States to China were especially attractive during 2016 because of a temporary reduction of the Chinese tariff on ethanol. The tariff was reduced from 30% to 5% during 2016, but returned to 30% at the start of 2017.

US ethanol imports fell 60% in 2016 to 36 million gallons, the lowest level since 2010. Imports were almost exclusively (99%) sugarcane ethanol from Brazil. Most of the imported ethanol went to the West Coast region, most likely for compliance with California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) Program, which uses scoring rules that count sugarcane ethanol as a fuel with a much lower carbon content than corn ethanol.

In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecasts that net exports of ethanol will increase by 6% more than 2016 levels to reach 1.2 billion gallons in 2017, potentially matching or exceeding the record level set in 2011.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SOCAR GPC, a gas-processing project of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), has selected UNIPOL PE Technology licensed by Univation Technologies for use in its world-scale 600KTA polyethylene plant to be built in Garadagh, Azerbaijan, as per Businesswire.

This project represents the first UNIPOL PE Process licensed in Azerbaijan and by SOCAR. The new polyethylene facility will take advantage of the flexibility of the UNIPOL PE Process to manufacture conventional and advanced polyethylene products covering a broad range of both high-density polyethylene (HDPE), including best-in-class HDPE injection molding grades, as well as linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) resin grades.

SOCAR GPC has also selected Univation’s XCAT Metallocene Polyethylene Technology for the manufacture of advanced metallocene film structures suitable for high-performance food packaging, stretch-wrap, heavy-duty sack and specialized multi-layer applications.

Production output from this new PE plant will be focused on satisfying growing polyethylene demand in both domestic and European markets in a wide range of goods.

SOCAR’s UNIPOL PE Process line will deliver a broad, flexible product mix with the agility to shift between HDPE and LLDPE over time to meet their customers’ evolving needs and underlying market opportunities. Furthermore, this world-scale 600KTA line will allow significant economy-of-scale benefits enabling both project capital cost efficiencies and ongoing highly competitive manufacturing costs.

As part of the Univation-Linde Alliance, Linde AG (Engineering Division) will complete the basic engineering design package (BEDP) for the project. In 2016, Univation and Linde Engineering entered into an Alliance relationship focused on delivering operating and capital cost advantages for both new build and retrofit projects for UNIPOL PE Technology.


MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering Co said on Monday that it had signed a deal worth USUSD3.2 billion with Iran’s Ahdaf Investment Company for the construction of the second phase of a petrochemical complex in Iran, said Koreaherald.

"The project allowed us to spearhead into the Iranian construction market as a lead manager. We plan to do everything in our capacity to clinch additional projects in the future," a spokesperson for Hyundai told The Korea Herald, which noted that the deal is the largest so far signed by a South Korean company in Iran.

Hyundai Engineering will act as lead manager of the Kangan Petro Refining Complex in southwestern Iran. The petrochemical complex is planned to have an annual production of around 1 million tons of ethylene, 500,000 tons of monoethylene glycol, and 350,000 tons of heavy and light polyethylene, The Korea Herald reported.

The financing of the deal – which was signed as an Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Finance (EPCF) contract -- will be finalized within nine months by Korean banks, the Iranian oil ministry’s news service Shana said on Sunday. Construction will take 48 months, according to the Iranian news service.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- CH2M has signed a framework agreement with Shell to provide engineering, procurement, construction and project management services across upstream, integrated gas and downstream projects globally, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

"We are committed to improving and embracing fundamental changes to how the industry delivers engineering, procurement, and construction projects," said CH2M Chair and CEO Jacqueline Hinman. "These changes are critical to owners and service providers."

As an engineering, procurement and construction services provider, CH2M will focus on delivering projects for Shell's operating sites and business units. This collaboration will allow Shell's business units to access CH2M's global technical and management expertise.

"We share Shell's commitment to KPI-driven performance measurement and incentives, and to innovation that will migrate the capital project life-cycle to a fully data-driven environment. These ways of working are inherent in our values, and our collective ideas and commitment can improve capital efficiency across Shell's asset base," said Sheila Galegher, Vice President and CH2M's Global Account Manager for Shell. "We are ready to be the change agent Shell needs to deliver on their goals."

As MRC wrote before, in March 2016, Shell and Saudi Aramco announced plans to break up Motiva Enterprises LLC and divide up the assets, almost two decades after forming the US oil refining and marketing joint venture.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- At least eight people were injured on Wednesday by explosion at a Pemex fuel storage and distribution facility near the state-owned oil company's Salamanca refinery, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, said Reuters, citing Pemex.

The company said there were no deaths or "severe damages" at the facility, which supplies gasoline to regional buyers. It added that the fire has been extinguished.

The blast occurred as workers were filling a tanker truck with fuel in a part of the plant away from storage facilities, Pemex said in a statement.

As MRC informed earlier, Pemex is investing almost USD5.5bn in upgrading its refineries, increasing pipeline capacity and modernising a fertiliser plant.

Pemex, Mexican Petroleum, is a Mexican state-owned petroleum company. Pemex has a total asset worth of USD415.75 billion, and is the world's second largest non-publicly listed company by total market value, and Latin America's second largest enterprise by annual revenue as of 2009. Company produces such polymers, as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS).
MRC