Sinopec buys first major African refinery in Chevron deal

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's Sinopec said on Wednesday it has agreed to pay almost USD1 billion for a 75% stake in Chevron Corp's South African assets and its subsidiary in Botswana, securing its first major refinery on the continent, said Reuters.

China Petroleum and Chemical Corp, or Sinopec, Asia's largest oil refiner, said the assets include a 100,000-bpd oil refinery in Cape Town, a lubricants plant in Durban as well as 820 petrol stations and other oil storage facilities. They also include 220 convenience stores across South Africa and Botswana.

With a growing middle class, demand in South Africa for refined petroleum has increased by nearly 5% annually over the past five years, to currently total about 27 MMt, it said.

Sinopec said it would retain the whole workforce as well as the existing Caltex brand for the retail fuel stations for up to six years before launching a rebranding strategy.

The remaining 25% of the South African assets will continue to be held by a group of local shareholders, in accordance with South African regulations.

Reuters reported on Friday that Sinopec was the last remaining bidder in the auction which lasted more than a year and drew interest from French oil firm Total and commodity traders Glencore and Gunvor.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical has shut its linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant for a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has started maintenance at the plant early this week. The exact duration of the planned turnaround could not be ascertained.

Located at Guangdong in China, the plant has a production capacity of 220,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, on 28 February 2016, Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical shut down its low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant. It is slated to remain shut until the end of the first week of March. Located at Guangdong in China, the plant has a production capacity of 250,000 mt/year.

Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical Company (Maoming Company) - a subsidiary of Sinopec- is located in Maoming, Guangdong and was founded in May 1955. The company now has a crude oil processing capacity of 13.5 million t/a and an ethylene production capacity of 1 million t/a. Maoming Company has turned out to be a large-scale integrated refining and chemical enterprise with refining as the leading business and petrochemical sector as the mainstay.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec Limited is a Chinese oil and gas company based in Beijing, China. It is listed in Hong Kong and also trades in Shanghai and New York . Sinopec is the worlds fifth biggest company by revenue.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell announced that Wantong Petrochemical Group is producing ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel using Honeywell UOP’s new HYT-6219 hydrotreating catalyst, said the company.

The catalyst, which is part of Honeywell UOP’s Unity hydrotreating portfolio, enables Wantong Petrochemical to produce cleaner burning ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel without a costly modification of its existing hydrotreating unit in Donyging in China’s Shandong Province. Hydrotreating is a method of removing sulfur from fuels in the refining process, using proprietary catalysts.

"This Unity hydrotreating catalyst will help Wantong and many other refiners meet new global standards for ultra-low sulfur transportation fuels such as gasoline and diesel, without a costly revamp of its equipment,” said Ken Stacherski, vice president and general manager of Honeywell UOP’s Catalysts, Adsorbents and Specialties business. “The high-activity HYT 6219 catalyst produces high-cetane diesel that meets the China V emissions standard, with sulfur levels lower than Wantong has ever before been able to achieve in its existing unit."

The announcement marks the first commercialization of a Honeywell UOP hydrotreating catalyst in distillate hydrotreating service since it exited an alliance with Albemarle last year, and follows launches of other hydrotreating catalysts for naphtha, hydrocracking pretreat and fluid catalytic cracking pretreat.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A plastic bottle recycler from Brazil plans to spend millions of dollars to open a new location in Florida, said Plasticsnews.

Florida Plastic Recycling LLC is the local name for a USD7 million project in Jacksonville being planned by Clodam do Brasil Ltda.

Word of the new project comes out of local media that spoke with JaxUSA Partnership, the nonprofit regional economic development arm of the Jacksonville chamber of commerce, JaxChamber.

An official at JaxUSA referred questions to Florida Plastic Recycling, which did not immediately return a call seeing comment.

However, local news reports indicated Clodam plans to ship bottles to Jacksonville for recycling and ship out plastic flake.

Jacksonville's location in northeast Florida, with both a major port and access to the interstate highway system, played a role in the company's site selection. The company also will be able to bring in recycled plastic by rail.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US-based Huntsman is planning to close its titanium dioxide (TiO2) manufacturing facility in Calais, France, by the third quarter of this year, said Chemicals-technology.

As part of the plan, the white end finishing and packaging operation of the Calais TiO2 facility will shut down, leading to the closure of the entire facility.

In 2015, Huntsman closed the black end manufacturing operations of its Calais-based TiO2 production facility.

Closing the white end finishing line of the Calais TiO2 facility will enable Huntsman to complete any of its remaining obligations to any third parties and regulators.

The proposed closure will affect 108 positions on site.
MRC