Recticel to build new production site in Finland

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Recticel has announced that its Insulation division plans to invest about EUR 23 million in a new greenfield production site in Finland, as per GV.

The facility will produce rigid polyurethane foam panels for thermal insulation for the construction sector in the Nordic region (Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the Baltic countries). Start of production is planned in the second half of 2018.

“This investment is an additional step in the execution of the growth strategy of our Insulation business. It offers an attractive expansion in the Nordic region, which is a growing market for high performance insulation materials”, said Olivier Chapelle, CEO of Recticel.

As MRC wrote earlier, Recticel (Brussels) in mid-2012 closed its comfort foam converting plant in Bladel, Netherlands. Beside, at the end of 2011, the Belgian PU foam specialist had shut down its foam converting plant in North Shields/UK.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- demitsu Kosan is in plans shut its naphtha cracker for a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed that the cracker is expected to be taken off-line for maintenance on September 20, 2017. The shutdown is likely to remain in force until end-October 2016.

Located at Chiba in Japan, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 375,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported before, Idemitsu Kosan said in late November 2016 that its JV with Mitsui Chemicals would conduct work to expand the processing of propane at Idemitsu's naphtha cracker to take advantage of cheap liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) prices. The work will be carried out in autumn 2017 and last about a month, during which time the cracker will be shut. The upgrade will boost the cracker's capacity to process propane as feedstock by three or four times, said Hideki Gotoh, deputy general manager of Idemitsu's petrochemical business. He added that Idemitsu would pay the costs for the upgrade, without giving a figure. The benefit from boosting propane and cutting naphtha as feedstock is set to lead to cost cuts of around USD8.90 million a year, the company spokeswoman said then.

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

МOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil Chemical Company announced today that its Singapore affiliate has completed its acquisition of one of the world’s largest aromatics facilities on Jurong Island in Singapore, said Yourpetrochemicalnews.

The acquisition was first announced in May 2017. The facility, previously owned by Jurong Aromatics Corporation, is located near ExxonMobil’s largest integrated refining and petrochemical complex, which has an ethylene production capacity of 1.9 million tonnes per year and a crude oil processing capacity of 592,000 barrels per day.

The acquisition will strengthen both sites with operational and logistical synergies, as well as increase ExxonMobil’s Singapore aromatics production to over 3.5 million tonnes per year, including 1.8 million tonnes of paraxylene, and add about 65,000 barrels per day of transportation fuels capacity.

"This strategic investment in our aromatics business in Singapore is a reflection of our ongoing commitment to meet the growing global demand for chemical products, particularly in Asia Pacific," said Karen McKee, senior vice president of basic chemicals, intermediates and synthetics for ExxonMobil Chemical Company. "As a leading global manufacturer of aromatics, we are well positioned to serve our customers in these key markets."

ExxonMobil has operated in Singapore for more than 120 years and is one of the country’s largest international manufacturing investors. Singapore’s integrated petrochemical complex can process a wide range of feedstocks, from light gases to crude oil. Later this year, the complex will begin the phased start-up of new 230,000 tonne-per-year specialty polymers facilities that will produce halobutyl rubber and performance resins for adhesive applications.

The company’s growth in Singapore is driven by the expected increase in global demand for chemical products over the next decade of nearly 45 percent, or about 4 percent per year, which is a faster pace than energy demand and economic growth. Nearly three-quarters of the increased demand is expected to be in Asia Pacific as a result of its rising prosperity and a growing middle class.

ExxonMobil Chemical Company is one of the largest petrochemical companies worldwide. The company holds leadership positions in some of the largest-volume and highest-growth commodity petrochemical products in the world. ExxonMobil Chemical Company has manufacturing capacity in every major region of the world, serving large and growing markets. More than 90 percent of the Company’s chemical capacity is integrated with large refineries or natural gas processing plants.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The heart of the US energy industry suffered further damage overnight from Tropical Storm Harvey, and supply constraints could last for weeks with nearly one-quarter of US fuel output knocked out, reported Reuters.

The Beaumont/Port Arthur area in Texas, where several large refiners are located, has seen more rain in the last 24 hours in than any other part of the region since the storm began late last week, according to David Roth, meteorologist at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center.

Harvey's disruption of the petroleum industry has driven gasoline futures prices up nearly 17% over the past week.

A total of 4.2 MMb of US refining capacity has been shut by Harvey, nearly as much as the nation of Japan consumes on a daily basis, based on company reports and Reuters estimates.

The latest shutdowns, carried out on Tuesday evening and on early Wednesday, were in Port Arthur, and included the nation's largest refinery.

"The continued increase in flooding creates high uncertainty on the amount of damage that US refineries will incur, the pace at which the shutdown will reverse and the magnitude of capacity that will be impaired over the next few months," Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note.

In addition to the refining outages, shale production has been sharply curtailed in the Eagle Ford region of Texas.

Major pipelines carrying gasoline and diesel fuel to Midwest and East Coast markets have been either throttled back or shut entirely.

Valero Energy Corp's 335 Mbpd Port Arthur, Texas, refinery was shut on Wednesday morning, while Motiva Enterprises' 603 Mbpd Port Arthur, Texas, plant, the largest US oil refinery, shut Tuesday.

More refinery closures could come as the storm has made landfall in Louisiana, which has 3.3 MMbpd of refining capacity. The Gulf accounts for nearly half the nation's total refining capacity.

There were faint signs of relief in Corpus Christi, where Valero's Three Rivers refinery was preparing to resume operations.

Restarts following a storm are often the most dangerous times for refiners, though the Corpus area received much less rain than the Houston metro area.

As MRC informed previously, oil markets were roiled on Monday after Tropical Storm Harvey wreaked havoc along the US Gulf Coast over the weekend, crippling Houston and its port, and knocking out several refineries as well as some crude production. US gasoline prices hit two-year highs as massive floods caused by the storm forced refineries in the area to close. In turn, U.S. crude futures fell as the refinery shutdowns could reduce demand for American crude. Brent futures steadied as pipeline blockades in Libya slashed the OPEC state's output by nearly 400 Mbpd.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) — State oil trader Unipec will develop "really strong" ties with China's independent refiners, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

China issued crude oil import quotas to privately run refiners, often called "teapots," for the first time in 2015, ending decades of exclusive access to overseas oil for state-run oil majors and further stimulating the nation's voracious demand for crude imports.

With about 2 MMbpd in crude import quotas this year, the growing role of the teapots has forced state refiners to scale back some refinery operations after helping to lift China's fuel exports to record highs last year. Still, Unipec President Chen Bo told Reuters the state trader was building a relationship with the independent refiners, which he dubbed "China New Force Refineries."

"I think in the future we will have a really strong relationship," he said on the sidelines of a forum organised by Unipec and the China Chamber of Commerce for Petroleum Industry. The meeting is the first time Unipec has publicly sought a dialogue with the teapots, so-called for the small capacities of their plants compared with the big state-run refineries.

Chen said Unipec was open-minded about cooperation with the smaller refiners and would "provide any advantages we have," such as leveraging its purchasing scale and flexible logistics. Last year Unipec signed a crude supply framework agreement with the trading arm of Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group, China's biggest independent refiner, aiming to supply an initial volume of 8 million barrels of crude in one year.

Unipec said it began supplying crude oil to Dongming under that agreement in October of last year. Dongming Director Zhang Liucheng on Tuesday said Sinopec had opened up to collaboration with the teapots, following the lead of rivals PetroChina and CNOOC.

"On the crude oil market, originally they didn't sell to us—PetroChina and CNOOC did. But now it's a trend for everybody to collaborate," Zhang told Reuters. Independent refiners made up nearly 90% of China's crude oil import growth last year, helping to put the world's second-biggest economy on course to challenge the United States as the top importer this year.

With teapots set to play an increasing role in the industry as reforms continue, Unipec has been forced to work with the smaller firms. "Unipec has resigned itself to working with the teapots but on the crude supply side hasn't been very successful, basically because PetroChina and CNOOC were there first," said Michal Meidan, Asia analyst at Energy Aspects in London.

Unipec has worked well with the teapots on marketing, selling the independents' products via its domestic retail arms, she said, but the state trader stopped buying gasoline last month because of market oversupply.

The efforts to strengthen ties to independent refiners could also be a move by state oil majors to hold onto their clout in the import markets with China's long-delayed launch of a crude oil futures contract set for later this year. "The change of tack is interesting ... ahead of the start up of the futures exchange," said Meidan.
MRC