Largest U.S. refinery shuts key crude unit, starts overhaul

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The largest U.S. refinery began a planned one-month overhaul on Monday of its key crude oil processing unit, said three sources familiar with plant operations, as per Reuters.

Motiva Enterprises Llc finished shutting down the large crude distillation unit (CDU) at its 603,000 bpd Port Arthur, Texas, refinery on Sunday night to start the work on Monday, the sources said. The 325,000 bpd VPS-5 CDU is scheduled to remain shut through February for the overhaul, its first since the unit began full production in 2013. Motiva also took down the coking unit associated with the CDU. The 110,000 bpd DCU-2 coker will be shut through mid-March for a planned overhaul.

Motiva spokeswoman Angela Goodwin confirmed that Motiva began planned maintenance on Monday at the Port Arthur Refinery, but declined to identify the units involved.

Both units were part of a USD10 billion expansion of the Port Arthur Refinery between 2007 and 2012 that more than doubled the plant's capacity to over 600,000 bpd. VPS-5 suffered disastrous piping damage in early June 2012 from chemical corrosion, about six weeks after beginning initial production following construction. The damage required eight months of repairs.

The lengthy shutdown of the marquee crude unit strained what was then a 50-50 partnership between Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Aramco. Aramco became the sole owner of Motiva and the Port Arthur Refinery in a negotiated breakup of the partnership on May 1, 2017. The Motiva Port Arthur Refinery accounts for 3 percent of U.S. refining capacity.

Most refinery units are shut for a full overhaul about every five years. VPS-5 is the largest of three CDUs at the Port Arthur Refinery. The other two remain in operation. The CDUs do the primary refining of crude oil and supply hydrocarbon feedstock for all other units. The coker converts residual crude from VPS-5 into motor fuel feedstock and petroleum coke, which can be used as a coal substitute.
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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.
MRC

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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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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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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