SK completes acquisition of Dow Chemical packaging business

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SK Global Chemical on Friday completed its acquisition of Dow Chemical’s packaging product business, reported The Korea Herald with reference to the company's statement Monday.

SK Global Chemical, the chemical unit of SK Innovation, signed a deal with Dow Chemical to acquire the US chemical firm’s polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) unit in October. PVDC is used for clear film packaging including plastic food wrap.

With the deal completed, SK Global Chemical now has full control of properties previously owned by Dow Chemical. They include Michigan-based facilities, related technologies and intellectual assets, as well as the trademark right to the plastic wrap brand Saran.

The latest acquisition of Dow Chemical’s packaging unit is reportedly expected to reach some 82 billion won (USD75 million). The sale price of the packaging unit is undisclosed by the company, as it is not legally bound to make a public report on deals worth less than 98 billion won or 2.5 percent of the company’s capital ratio.

In September, the chemical affiliate of SK Innovation finished the transaction of Dow Chemical’s ethylene acrylic acid business, of which the company announced in early February 2017, for USD370 million.

The latest acquisition is in line with SK Innovation’s future strategy that aims to expand the company’s packaging and automotive materials businesses, the company’s officials said.

SK Global Chemical is a pioneering petrochemical company in Korea, being the first in the country to build a naphtha cracking facility in 1972. Through continuous facility investment, R&D and technological improvement, the company has maintained its position as the leader of the petrochemical industry in Korea.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) — GE Power was selected by Alco Bio Fuel, one of Belgium’s major biorefineries, to deploy its Predix-based Asset Performance Management (APM) solution to future-proof the refinery’s power-generation unit’s refinery field operations, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The service contract will last for 10 yr, and GE will also be responsible for providing on-site service support. When an electric rotating machine (ERM), such as the generator in the power-generation unit, fails, the consequence can be significant. Digital transformation is a necessary and inevitable step to improve operational efficiency and reduce risks of power outages.

Traditionally, vibration sensors are used to detect failures in rotating machines, but their ability is limited to detecting mechanical failures only, neglecting common electrical failures. Industry advancements in big data analytics and new software applications such as GE’s Predix-based APM solution, combined with new sensing techniques, have enabled new ways to more effectively monitor and fine-tune the performance of an ERM.

GE’s APM solution, powered by Predix, the application development platform for the Industrial Internet, connects, monitors and provides predictive analytics to the generator inside the plant. When deployed, it will collect data from electric sensors built into the generator asset.

The APM application analyzes streams of data with key intelligence about the health and performance of the generator asset while searching for signs of mechanical or electrical anomalies, which may lead to potential failure or inefficiency. These insights can, in turn, help operators to fine-tune parameters of the generator to improve its performance. More importantly, it will allow operators to solve potential problems before they occur, reducing costly unplanned downtime, mitigating risk and improving productivity. The data-driven operation method will also enable predictive maintenance, which means fixing machines before failures arise, without wasting time servicing them on a fixed schedule, and it will reduce excessive maintenance costs.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Repairing Britain's Forties crude oil pipeline in the North Sea is still expected to take two to four weeks, operator Ineos said on Monday, as assessment continues a week after it was closed down, reported Reuters.

The system, which carries around 450,000 bpd of Forties crude to Britain, along with a third of the UK's total offshore natural gas output, has been closed since last Monday after a routine inspection revealed a crack in an onshore section of the pipe.

"We are currently monitoring the pipeline and working through some of the solutions for repair," spokesman Richard Longden said, adding the crack had not grown in the last week.

Ineos on Dec 13 was forced to declare force majeure on deliveries of Forties crude oil, natural gas and condensate, suspending its contractual obligations to customers due to circumstances beyond its control.

The privately-owned chemicals company based in Switzerland bought the pipeline system from BP in late October.

It has told clients it expects any repair work to take between two and four weeks, an estimate that has not changed in the last week.

Forties is the biggest of the five North Sea crudes that underpin Brent, a benchmark for oil trading in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Brent crude oil futures were up around 0.25% on the day at USD63.39/bbl by 1132 GMT, having touched USD65 following the outage last week, the highest since mid-2015.

As MRC informed before, Ineos Group Ltd. is considering expansion of its plants in USA to take advantage of low-cost natural-gas liquids as feedstock for ethylene production. The company is likely to add 250 mln-1 bln lbs of annual ethylene production at its Chocolate Bayou site south of Houston, Dennis Seith, chief executive officer of the company’s U.S. olefins and polymers unit, said in March 2016. Additional polypropylene and alpha-olefins capacity may be added at the site.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PetroRabigh, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical, has brought on-stream its No.2 linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) unit following a prolong shutdown, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Saudi Arabia informed that the company has resumed operations at the unit early last week. The plant was taken off-stream for maintenance in early-October 2017.

Located in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, the No. 2 unit has a LLDPE production capacity of 350,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote previously, PetroRabigh took off-stream its LLDPE plant in Saudi Arabia for maintenance from March 16 to late March 2016.

Located in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia, the LLDPE plant has a production capacity of 600,000 mt/year.

PetroRabigh, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical, has an annual output capacity of 18 million tonnes of refined products and 2.4 million tonnes of petrochemicals. Thus, the complex currently has a cracker to produce 1.3-million t/y of ethylene and 900,000 t/y of propylene, as well as downstream production of polyethylene, polypropylene, propylene oxide, ethylene glycol and butene-1.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Overall imports of polyethylene (PE) into the Ukrainian market dropped in the first eleven months of 2017 by 5% year on year to 225,700 tonnes. The greatest increase in demand occurred for high density polyethylene (HDPE), according to MRC DataScope.

Last month's PE imports grew to 21,100 tonnes from 19,100 tons in October, local companies increased their purchasing of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE). Overall PE imports decreased to 225,700 tonnes in January-October 2017, compared to 238,700 tonnes a year earlier, on lower demand for HDPE, while demand for other ethylene polymers increased.

Structure of PE imports over the reported period was as follows.

Last month's imports of HDPE into the Ukrainian market increased, and some local companies actively built up additional stocks of film HDPE.
November HDPE imports into the country were about 7,900 tonnes, compared with 6,900 tonnes in October. Overall HDPE imports reached 89,400 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2017, compared to 112,900 tonnes a year earlier. The most reduction in imports accounted in the film HDPE, resulting from the resumption of local production.

November LDPE imports into Ukraine remained practically steady from the October's levels, totalling about 6,000 tonnes. Overall LDPE imports exceeded 61,400 tonnes over the stated period, up by 2% year on year.

Last month's LLDPE imports were 6,300 tonnes, compared to 4,300 tonnes in October, with stretch films producers accounting for an increase in demand. Overall LLDPE imports grew to 60,600 tonnes in January-November 2017 from 53,400 tonnes a year earlier. The main increase in demand occurred for the local producers of the film production.

Imports of other PE grades, including ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA), totalled 14,200 tonnes over the stated period, compared to 12,100 tonnes a year earlier.

MRC