Zhejiang Petroleum awards DuPont contract for sulfuric acid regeneration unit

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Zhejiang Petroleum and Chemical Co. (ZPC) in China has awarded and signed contracts for the engineering, technology license and proprietary equipment for a MECS sulfuric acid regeneration (SAR) unit, licensed by DuPont Clean Technologies, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

ZPC is constructing a greenfield refinery and petrochemical project on Dayushan Island, just off the coast of eastern China, near Shanghai and Ningbo. The USD15 B project is the largest privately led petrochemical and refining project in China’s history. The project will be executed in two phases with the first phase coming online in late 2018. After completion, the complex will have a refining capacity of 40 MMtpy, or 800,000 bpd.

The MECS SAR unit for the ZPC petrochemical complex will have a capacity to regenerate 858 mt of spent sulfuric acid. The unit will produce a combination of products consisting of 98.3 wt% sulfuric acid, 99.2 wt% sulfuric acid, and 20% oleum. Furthermore, the MECS SAR unit is designed to meet the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection’s current emission requirements for SO2, NOx and sulfuric acid mist.

"China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection has enacted some of the most stringent point source emission requirements in the world," said Jason Hartman, global market specialist for the MECS SAR technology. "DuPont Clean Technologies is uniquely positioned to meet these new standards through enhancements to our MECS SAR technology. These enhancements include the MECS Vectorwall furnace, DynaWave scrubbing and Brink mist eliminators. When built, the SAR unit at ZPC’s petrochemical complex will achieve world-class environmental emissions, reliability and on-stream time."

Specific to the oil and gas industry, MECS offers solutions for treating sour off-gas from amine treaters and sour water strippers to achieve ultra-low emissions specifications. In place of, or in addition to, traditional Claus SRU / TGTU facilities, these solutions can incorporate wet gas scrubbing (DynaWave), direct wet gas conversion to sulfuric acid (SULFOX), and/or regenerative recovery of SO2 (SolvR).
MRC

Hengli Petrochemical selects LyondellBasell PE technology for new plant in China

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell has announced Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Chemical Co., Ltd. has selected LyondellBasell Hostalen ACP polyethylene (PE) process technology, as per the company's press release.

The technology will be used for a 400 KTA high density polyethylene (HDPE) unit to be built in the Hengli Petrochemical Industrial Park (HPIP) on Changxing Island in Dalian, Liaoning Province, China.

"Hostalen ACP process technology allows our customers to produce high-performance multimodal HDPE products exhibiting a combination of properties not achievable with unimodal or bimodal grades" said Dan Coombs, Executive Vice President Global Manufacturing, Refining, Projects and Technology at LyondellBasell. "Based upon our heritage of licensing and technology leadership, LyondellBasell is uniquely positioned to deliver to our customer’s world class manufacturing processes to meet market needs".

Hostalen ACP process technology manufactures high-performance, multi-modal HDPE resins with an industry-leading stiffness/toughness balance, impact resistance, high stress cracking resistance and processing advantages used in film, blow molding and pipe applications.

LyondellBasell is a leading licensor of polypropylene (PP) and PE technologies with more than 250 polyolefin process licenses.

As MRC wrote before, in March 2017, LyondellBasell PE process technology 'LyondellBasell Hostalen ACP' was chosen by Shandong Yuhuang Shengshi Chemical for a 200,000 tpa HDPE unit at its petrochemical complex in Heze, Shandong, China.

LyondellBasell is one of the world's largest plastics, chemical and refining companies. The company manufactures products at 57 sites in 18 countries. 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.
MRC

Linde-Praxair merger deal falls behind schedule

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Linde and Praxair's USD65 B merger talks are facing legal complexities that mean the agreement will not be finalized as planned before Linde's annual shareholder meeting on May 10, a source familiar with the situation said, reported Reuters.

The all-share US-German merger of equals is intended to create a market leader that will overtake France's Air Liquide and reunite a global Linde group split by World War One a century ago.

Adding to the complexities, the deal has met unexpectedly strong resistance from German trade unions who fear a dilution of their influence when the headquarters moves out of Germany and more profitable Praxair applies its operating practices worldwide.

A Linde spokesman said the two companies were still working towards finalizing the business combination agreement before the AGM, but could not rule out that it would be later.

Linde is not planning to allow shareholders to vote on the deal at the AGM, arguing that each investor would in any case have to make an individual decision whether to tender his or her shares.

German private-investor association DSW has already demanded that an extraordinary shareholder meeting be called if the deal is not wrapped up before the AGM.

As MRC wrote before, in early December 2016, Praxair approached the German company with fresh proposals for a merger of equals to create a world market leader valued at over USD60 billion. These proposals address several concerns that led Linde to call off earlier merger discussions in September 2016, principally the location of the merged group headquarters, management issues and potential job losses in Germany, according to insider reports.

We also remind that in early 2016, Linde AG has agreed with Gazprom to build a gas processing plant in eastern Russia. The plant will be part of Gazprom’s pipeline taking gas from eastern Siberia to China. The Amur Gas Processing Plant will be one of the largest in the world, with capacity of up to 49 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually. The plant will be constructed in five phases due for completion in 2024.

Besides, earlier, in 2013, SIBUR, a Russian gas processing and petrochemicals company, and Linde Group signed agreements to build and operate new air separation units in Dzerzhinsk, the Nizhny Novgorod Region. The main aim of the new unit is to supply the oxygen, nitrogen and compressed air required to SIBUR’s local ethylene oxide and glycols plants. Linde will also supply air gases to other customers at the Dzerzhinsk chemicals hub as well as to the regional market in Nizhny Novgorod and beyond. The new unit will have a total production capacity of around 30,000 cubic metres of gaseous oxygen per hour.

The Linde Group is a world-leading gases and engineering company with around 62,000 employees in more than 100 countries worldwide.
MRC

Sinopec says fire at rubber warehouse has been put out

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec Corp said on Thursday that a fire in a warehouse at a petrochemical and refining complex in southern China operated by one of its subsidiaries was put out at 2:20 pm local time and had not affected production, reported Reuters.

Sinopec said in a statement the fire started at 9:55 (0255 GMT) on Thursday in a warehouse for synthetic rubber in the facility operated by Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical Corp in the province of Guangdong. It said there were no casualties.

The Maoming plant is one of the country's largest oil refineries, producing 360,000 barrels per day, and is also able to churn out 1.1 MMt of ethylene annually.

Part of the refinery was shut from March 20 for planned maintenance, a company source told Reuters previously.

Sinopec said it would investigate the cause of the fire and avoid similar accidents in future.

As MRC wrote previously, Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical restarted its low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant in China on 12 January 2017. It was shut for a brief maintenance on January 8, 2017. 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

TPC to shut LDPE plant in Singapore next week

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Polyolefin Co (Singapore) Pte Ltd (TPC), one of the largest manufacturers of petrochemical products in Asia, is likely to take its low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant off-stream early next week, as per Apic-online.

A polymerupdate source in Singapore informed that the company has planned to shut the plant on April 17, 2017 owing to an expected feedstock shortage from upstream cracker. The plant is slated to remain off-line for few days.

Located on Jurong Island, Singapore, the LDPE plant has a production capacity of 180,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, in September 2016, TPC shut its LDPE plant in Ayer Merbau (Jurong Island, Singapore) owing to a short supply of feedstock.

TPC, The Polyolefin Company (Singapore) Pte Ltd is the first major polyolefin manufacturer in Southeast Asia and has been in operations since February 1984. A plant expansion in 1997 and subsequent major modification to increase capacity in 2006 has enabled TPC to become one of the largest and most successful polyolefin producers in the region.
MRC