KPIC lowers run rates at Onsan cracker

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Korea Petrochemical Industry Co (KPIC) has reduced run rates at its naphtha cracker mid this week owing to technical issues, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that the cracker is presently running at around 65% of production capacity rates.

The cracker was operating at near full capacity early this week following an unplanned shutdown that lasted for two days last week.

Located at Onsan city in South Korea, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 800,000 mt/year and propylene capacity of 500,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed previously, in June 2017, KPIC finilized the expansion of its ethylene production capacity. Thus, KPIC started commercial operation at its Ulsan-based Naphtha Cracking Center (NCC) from Jun 23, 2017. Earlier, KPIC produced about 470,000 mt/year of ethylene from its Ulsan-based NCC. With the expansion, the company added 330,000 mt/year of ethylene, and its combined ethylene capacity reached 800,000 mt/year.

KPIC is one of the key producers of ethylene in South Korea. The company’s ethylene capacity accounted for about 6% of total ethylene production in South Korea before the expansion was completed, and now the company’s market share will be increased to nearly 10%.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Supervisory Board of Bayer AG has appointed Wolfgang Nickl (48) to the Board of Management of Bayer AG effective April 26, 2018, the producer said on its site.

He is to succeed Johannes Dietsch (55) as the company’s Chief Financial Officer on June 1, 2018. In April this year, Dietsch announced that he would be leaving Bayer at his own request at the end of May 2018.

Nickl has already been the CFO of several companies in the United States and the Netherlands. He is currently Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at ASML N.V., Veldhoven, Netherlands, which is the world’s leading supplier of lithography systems for the semiconductor industry. "In Wolfgang Nickl, we are pleased to have found a successful manager with a proven track record in the field of finance and many years of experience abroad," said Werner Wenning, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bayer AG. "We wish him every success in his new role."

As MRC informed before, German drugs and pesticides group further reduced its holding in Covestro to 31.5% from 40.9% by selling 19 million shares in the plastics business for a total of EUR1.2 billion (USD1.4 billion). It said on Wednesday that it placed the stock at EUR63.25 each, a 3.7% discount to Tuesday’s closing share price, which DZ Bank analyst Peter Spengler said indicated healthy demand for the stock. Bayer, which is trying to wrap up the USD66 billion takeover of U.S. seeds giant Monsanto by the end of the year, had announced the accelerated book building late on Tuesday, part of its plan to fully sever ties with Covestro over the medium-term.

Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech polymer materials. As an innovation company, it sets trends in research-intensive areas. Bayer's products and services are designed to benefit people and improve their quality of life. At the same time, the Group aims to create value through innovation, growth and high earning power. Bayer is committed to the principles of sustainable development and to its social and ethical responsibilities as a corporate citizen.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global technology and specialty materials company, has increased list and off-list selling prices for vinyl acetate-based (VAM) emulsions in Asia, as per the company's press release.

The price increases below was effective as of 6 September 2017, or as contracts otherwise allow, and are incremental to any previously announced increases.

Thus, the company raised the price of vinyl acetate-based emulsions sold in China by CNY500/mt and in Asia (outside of China) - by USD100/mt.

As MRC reported before, effective June 21, 2017, Celanese Corporation raised its prices of vinyl acetate ethylene (EVA) emulsions sold in Asia (outside of China). Thus, prices rose by USD80/tonne.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,300 employees worldwide and had 2016 net sales of USD5.4 billion.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- GE Water & Process Technologies has honored INEOS with its prestigious Ecomagination Leadership and Return on Environment (ROE) awards to recognize the petrochemical manufacturer for its noteworthy reductions in water usage and associated costs savings on its KG ethylene plant at its petrochemical complex in Grangemouth, Scotland, according for Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Faced with a water cooling system that was limited to four cycles due to calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate scaling, the KG plant team collaborated with GE Water & Process Technologies to address these issues and thereby increase the cycles of their cooling water. Specifically, Water & Process Technologies provided the asset with its GenGard corrosion treatment chemistry, TrueSense cooling water technology and InSight asset performance management (APM) system.

By implementing this solution, INEOS would have the ability to potentially increase the water cycles in the cooling tower system to eight cycles, which would conserve approximately 100 MMgal of water per year and thereby deliver significant savings.

GE’s InSight APM system and service reliability center allowed for continuous monitoring of key water parameters between service visits, which ensured that any issue that could increase the scaling due to increased cycles were addressed quickly and efficiently.

The GE Water & Process Technologies Ecomagination Leadership award recognizes the achievements of industrial users for striking a positive balance between today's economic, industrial and sustainability challenges. It is given to the top customers in environmental and economic performance. The business’ prestigious ROE award honors significant environmental (water, energy, resource) accomplishments.

INEOS is a global manufacturer of petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and oil products. It comprises 18 businesses each with a major chemical company heritage. Its production network spans 67 sites in 16 countries throughout the world. Grangemouth represents INEOS’ largest manufacturing site by volume of products. It is home to Scotland’s only crude oil refinery and produces the bulk of fuels used in Scotland.

Its Grangemouth petrochemical plant makes around 1 MMtpy of product, which is used as the building blocks in the manufacturing of household items. These include synthetic ethanol, ethylene, propylene and polymers (polyethylene and polypropylene). INEOS’ products are used extensively in the petrochemical industry and transformed into bottles and pipes, cabling and insulation and food packaging and are used in the pharmaceutical industry.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in September 2016, INEOS Enterprises completed the sale of INEOS Styrenics, its Expandable Polystyrene Business (EPS), to Synthos S.A. for EUR80m. The sale of the Styrenics business includes manufacturing sites at Wingles and Ribecourt in Northern France and Breda in the Netherlands. The three production sites are supported by its technology Centre in Breda, including a research laboratory and pilot plant facilities. Customer Service, Logistics and Finance groups are also located in Breda.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) — Saudi Arabia will supply full contracted volumes of crude oil to at least five north Asian term buyers in October, while a sixth regional refiner was notified of cuts to its October Arab Extra Light supplies, said Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The October allocations are in contrast to the steep cuts in the September allotments and reaffirms Saudi Arabia’s desire to maintain its Asian market share. Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest crude exporter.

Saudi Arabia is likely taking advantage of the lower refinery run rates and ample crude inventories in the United States in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, to redirect the allocation cuts from Asia to the United States, a trader who specializes in Middle East crude supplies said.

"Saudi allocations are all about the math. They can cut US allocations and supply that to Asia," the trader added. A source from the sixth Asian refiner said that its October supply of Arab Extra Light crude was cut by 10%, likely because of repair work in September at Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oilfield, which produces the grade.

Saudi Arabia plans to cut crude oil allocations to its customers worldwide in October by 350,000 bpd, an industry source familiar with Saudi oil policy told Reuters on Thursday, in line with Saudi Arabia’s commitments to a supply reduction pact by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers.

In comparison, Saudi Arabia pledged last month to cut its September crude oil worldwide allocations by 520,000 bpd.
MRC