Pumping on Colombias Transandino pipeline halted after bomb attack

MOSCOW (MRC) - Pumping on Colombia's southern Transandino pipeline was halted on Sunday after a bomb attack by the ELN rebels spilled crude into a river, state-run oil company Ecopetrol and the military said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) is in the midst of a renewed offensive against the military and oil infrastructure, after the end of a months-long ceasefire amid peace talks to end more than 53 years of war.

The attack, which occurred late on Saturday in Mallama municipality in Narino province, has not affected exports or crude production at fields in the southern jungle zone along the border with Ecuador, Ecopetrol said.

The 109-mile Transandino has the capacity to transport 85,000 barrels of crude per day.

The ELN, which has some 2,000 fighters, has killed two police officers and one soldier in attacks since the ceasefire ended on Jan. 9. The group on Saturday kidnapped an Ecopetrol contractor repairing damage to the Cano-Limon pipeline, also bombed by the ELN, the army said.

President Juan Manuel Santos has recalled the head of the government's negotiating team at the peace talks in Quito back to Bogota to discuss the future of talks.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) has received board of directors' approval to invest in a new olefins project at Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate, Rayong Province, Thailand, as per Apic-online.

The project, expected to cost about USD985-million, in-volves a new facility with a production capacity of 500,000 t/y of ethylene and 250,000 t/y of propylene, using naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas as the main feedstocks. Commercial operations are planned to begin in 2020.

Once complete, PTTGC's nameplate olefins capacity will increase to more than 3.7-million t/y from nearly 3-million t/y currently.

An engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) agreement for the project was signed on 23 Jan. 2018, the company noted. Details of the agreement were not given; however, according to a Korean press report, the EPC contract was awarded to Samsung Engineering.

In 2016, PCN reported that the company was also planning to carry out a feasibility study for downstream production of acrylic acid, styrene, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and polystyrene, among others.

As MRC informed before, PTT is on track to start commercial operations at its new 400,000 mt/year metallocene C6 linear low density polyethylene (MLLDPE) plant at Map Ta Phut, Thailand, in the first quarter of 2018. PTT had started up the plant by the end of last year.

PTT currently has a total capacity of 800,000 mt/year of HDPE, 300,000 mt/year of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and 400,000 mt/year of LLDPE at the same site.

PTT Global Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nippon Shokubai said it is planning to increase production capacities for its functional monomer VEAA and functional polymers EPOCROS and EPOMIN at sites in Japan, in order to meet strong growth in global demand, as per Apic-online.

VEAA production capacity will be raised at the company's Himeji plant. Mechanical completion is scheduled for December 2019.

Nippon Shokubai will also increase EPOCROS production capacity at Himeji, with completion expected in August 2018.

At the company's Kawasaki facility, EPOMIN produc-tion capacity will boosted. Mechanical completion is anticipated in September 2019. Nippon did not give the capacities of the plants.

As MRC informed earlier, in November 2015, Nippon Shokubai Co announced that Nippon Shokubai Europe, a subsidiary in Belgium, had held a groundbreaking ceremony for new superabsorbent polymer (SAP) plant and acrylic acid (AA) plant in its plant site in Antwerp, Belgium.

Nippon Shokubai Co., Ltd. provides ethylene oxide, acrylic, superabsorbents, performance chemicals, and catalyst and green energy materials. It operates through three segments: Basic Chemicals, Functional Chemicals, and Environment & Catalysts.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - China's Ministry of Transport is planning to establish a laboratory specializing in treating oil spills at sea, the first of its kind in the country, local media Science and Technology Daily reported on Sunday, asper Hydrocarbonprocessing.

China is spending some 200 million yuan a year on research for emergency treatment of oil spills but the technological expertise has not been widely applied because of lack of such a lab, the report said.

The laboratory is planned in northern port city of Tianjin, off the Bohai Bay, with an initial investment of USD63 million. The investment will go to research projects on oceanic ecological protection and safety issues for sea-borne transportation.

To date, only the United States and France have laboratories capable of undertaking tests and inspections required in treating ocean oil spills, the report said.

The Iranian oil tanker Sanchi collided with a dry cargo vessel early this month about 160 nautical miles off China's east coast, in the world's worst oil tanker disaster for decades.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- An advisory council to Saudi Arabia's government has asked the kingdom's securities regulator to study the impact of listing Saudi Aramco on the local bourse amid concern that a huge initial public offering could damage the market, reported Reuters.

The Shura Council's fiscal committee has also asked the Capital Market Authority (CMA) to make sure that the stock market's liquidity does not become concentrated in the giant oil company alone, state news agency SPA reported late on Tuesday, 23 January.

The government has said it plans to sell about 5 percent of Aramco, hoping to raise some USD100 billion or more in what would likely be the world's biggest initial public offering (IPO). The sale is expected in the second half of 2018.

Saudi officials have said that in addition to Riyadh, they may list Aramco on one or more foreign markets such as New York, London and Hong Kong, which would spread the burden of the IPO and reduce the strain on the Saudi market. But after more than a year of deliberations, a decision on a foreign market has not been announced and some officials have suggested Aramco might list in Riyadh alone.

There is concern in Saudi financial circles, however, that the IPO could be too large for the local market to absorb.

The SPA report did not say whether the CMA's study should look at the impact of listing Aramco in Riyadh alone, or scenarios in which it was listed in Saudi Arabia as well as foreign markets.

The Saudi market only has a capitalisation of about USD470 billion, meaning it could be destabilised by Aramco's listing if other stocks are sold heavily to raise funds for investment in the oil company. The Saudi exchange's chief executive Khalid al-Hussan told Reuters this month that Riyadh hoped to be the only venue for the Aramco listing and could handle all of the IPO. Liquidity would not be a problem, he said.

The Shura Council and the Capital Market Authority had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters on Wednesday.

As MRC wrote before, Saudi Aramco and France's Total are considering building a mixed-feed cracker and derivatives in Jubail, near their joint refining complex. The cracker is expected to have a capacity of 1.5 MMtpy. The feedstock would partially come from SATORP, the existing Aramco-Total joint refining venture, and from Sadara, a joint venture between Aramco and Dow Chemical, also in Jubail.

Saudi Aramco is an integrated oil and chemicals company, a global leader in hydrocarbon production, refining processes and distribution, as well as one of the largest global oil exporters. It manages proven reserves of crude oil and condensate estimated at 261.1bn barrels, and produces 9.54 million bbl daily. Headquartered in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the company employs over 61,000 staff in 77 countries.
MRC