S-Oil on track to complete construction of residue-upgrading complex in April

MOSCOW (MRC) -- South Korea-based S-Oil Corp., wholly owned by Saudi Aramco, will complete construction of its residue-upgrading complex (RUC) and olefin downstream complex (ODC) in April, which will help enhance its competitiveness by producing more high value-added products, reported GV with reference to the company’s chief executive statement.

Othman Al-Ghamdi, chief executive of S-Oil, said that the company will focus this year on successfully completing its residue upgrading and capacity expansion project that is underway at its Onsan refinery complex in Ulsan in southern coast.

The KRW 4.8 trillion (USD 4.46 billion) RUC/ODC project involves building a facility that produces high-valued chemical products such as propylene and gasoline using residues left after refining crude oil, and then using propylene to product polypropylene and propylene oxide.

S-Oil broke ground for the RUC/ODC project in May 2016, with an aim to complete construction by April, this year. When construction is completed, the company expects to recoup initial investment in six years.
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BASF to construct a new MDI synthesis unit in Geismar, Louisiana

MOSCOW (MRC) – BASF will start the construction of a new methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) synthesis unit at the company’s Verbund site in Geismar, Louisiana, in early Q2 2018. Planning and engineering for the new unit started in 2016 and were recently completed, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The new plant is an important step to double BASF’s annual MDI capacity in Geismar from 300,000 metric tons to close to 600,000 metric tons in the medium term. With this investment, BASF supports the growth of its North American MDI customers.

MDI is an important component for polyurethanes – an extremely versatile plastics material that contributes to improved insulation for appliances, provides lighter materials for cars and helps save energy in buildings.
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Celanese opens customer color & aesthetics solution center at Kentucky engineered materials facility

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global technology and specialty materials company, has announced the opening of a new Customer Color & Aesthetics Solution Center at the company's Florence, Kentucky compounding and manufacturing facility to support the growth of its engineered materials customer base and to enable close collaboration in the selection and design of aesthetics products, as per the company's press release.

The new solution center will support original equipment manufacturers and their tier suppliers in the automotive, consumer electronics, appliance, medical device, toys, kitchen/bath, and other specialty application industries.

Color technologists at the new Celanese solution center will collaborate closely with industrial designers interested in product innovations for appearance technologies using engineered materials. Customers can also leverage one of the broadest polymer product portfolios in the industry while incorporating the very latest color and appearance technologies. The new center incorporates both instrumental and visual color evaluation capabilities, accelerated weathering, laser marking, state-of-the-art specialty compounding, and injection molding infrastructure.

"Celanese is committed to investing in and growing our appearance and color portfolio capabilities which serves multiple global customers," said Scott Richardson, Senior Vice President of Celanese's engineered materials business. "This new center augments our strong color matching capabilities found in Germany, Italy, Mexico and China and will further strengthen our engineered materials customer relationships and offer access to some of our most critical market segments."

"Celanese has a strong color capabilities track record and offers one of the broadest and most differentiated product portfolios and technical capabilities for appearance technologies in the thermoplastics industry," said Verghese Thomas, Vice President and Chief Technology & Innovation Officer. "The capabilities at this new center will help eliminate design complexity for customers and accelerate the appearance project pipeline by providing enabling services including part design and engineering analyses, prototyping, part processing, and advanced testing and analytics."

As MRC wrote before, Celanese Corporation increased its list and off-list selling prices for Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) sold in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. The price increases below were effective February 1, 2018, or as contracts otherwise allow, and are incremental to any previously announced increases.

Thus, VAM prices raised, as follows:

- by EUR50/mt - for Europe and the Middle East;
- by USD0.05/lb - for USA and Canada;
- by USD100/mt - for Mexico and South America.

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.
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Sasol USD1.1 billion FT Wax Expansion project complete, successfully commissioned

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sasol inaugurated the full completion of its USD1.1 billion FT Wax Expansion Project (FTWEP). Phase 2 began beneficial operation in March 2017, while phase 1 was commissioned in 2015, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

"With completion of this project, South Africa is now one of the leading countries of wax production globally. "We're enormously proud of this achievement and believe it is a fine symbol of South Africa's industrial prowess," said Bongani Nqwababa, Joint President and Chief Executive Officer, Sasol Limited.

"As one of the leading producers of medium and hard waxes worldwide, Sasol leverages our expertise and proprietary technologies to produce premium waxes that offer unique properties and superior performance for our customers," added Stephen Cornell, Joint President and Chief Executive Officer, Sasol Limited.

Marketed by the Performance Chemicals team, hard waxes, medium waxes, liquid paraffins and waxy oils are supplied to a variety of industrial and speciality applications. Hard waxes are used in hotmelt adhesives, PVC processing, inks, paints, coatings, and asphalt applications; medium waxes are used in candle markets and emulsions in the manufacturing of construction boards.

Throughout the duration of the project, there were 49 service providers and approximately 5,500 construction workers on site. The project was resourced by 450 engineers with some 22,000 isometric drawings created and 904 pieces of mechanical equipment installed. In excess of 31 million hours were worked with an exceptional safety record of 0.15 recordable case rate (RCR), below the benchmark of projects of this scale.

FTWEP is one of a number of major capital investments the company has made in South Africa, further entrenching the country's reputation as Africa's leading industrial nation.
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SABIC demonstrates commitment to sustainable development at WEF with iconic structure, ICEhouse

MOSCOW (MRC) -- For the third consecutive year, SABIC is displaying a concept of an energy-efficient, quick to construct, and reusable building at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, from January 23 to 26, demonstrating the company’s commitment to invest heavily in innovative sustainability projects, said the producer in its press release.

Dr. Abdulaziz Saleh Al-Jarbou, SABIC Chairman, will host a reception for a number of global business leaders attending the WEF at the iconic structure, called ICEhouse - where ICE stands for "Innovation for the Circular Economy."

ICEhouse was built using SABIC’s LEXAN sheet and systems for the walls, ceiling, roofing and windows. It promotes breakthrough technology and the architect William McDonough’s concept of the importance of closed-loop, durable carbon systems. William McDonough, sustainability pioneer, and his companies, William McDonough+Partners and WonderFrame LLC, designed and built ICEhouse with SABIC’s collaboration and support. ICEhouse represents a prototype for innovative building designs and structures that can be rapidly erected, and are useful in applications such as addressing the housing needs of people in extreme distressed situations.

Commenting on SABIC’s sustainability-centered participation at the WEF, SABIC Vice Chairman & CEO, Yousef Al-Benyan said, "We believe that sustainability provides short-term gains while strengthening long-term prospects for any organization, both internally and externally. This is why we have embedded sustainability in the fabric of our business and actively seek collaboration with thought leaders, such as William McDonough. In the process, we are benefiting global society, while, at our home base in Saudi Arabia, we are enabling Vision 2030 by stimulating downstream growth."

Complementing the ICEhouse at the WEF, SABIC will outline its work to underpin its continued commitment to help solve the issue of plastic waste. It is the company’s key ambition to decouple plastic from purely fossil-based feedstocks and drastically reduce the leakage of plastics into nature.

SABIC General Manager for Corporate Sustainability, Frank Kuijpers said, "Plastic waste that is today being incinerated or used for landfill, will in future be chemically recycled. We are the first in the industry that is committed to scale up high-quality recycling processes for chemical recycling of mixed plastic waste to the original polymer. SABIC has the know-how, the resources and the resolve to help reduce the waste-stream."

Kuijpers added, "Plastics are valuable and have many benefits. We believe that the steps we are taking today will directly affect the world, the economy and the quality of life in decades to come."

As MRC reported earlier, SABIC continued its global expansion with the inauguration of a new polypropylene (PP) pilot plant in Geleen, the Netherlands, in mid-September 2017, and the announcement of a new investment in a state-of-the-art PP extrusion facility to be built at the same location.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the world's market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
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