Highlights of EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook February 2018

MOSCOW (MRC) -- North Sea Brent crude oil spot prices averaged $69 per barrel (b) in January, an increase of USD5/b from the December level, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Monthly average Brent prices have increased for seven consecutive months, and, on January 11, spot prices moved higher than USD70/b for the first time since December 2014. EIA forecasts Brent spot prices will average about USD62/b in both 2018 and 2019 compared with an average of USD54/b in 2017.

EIA expects West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices to average USD4/b lower than Brent prices in both 2018 and 2019. NYMEX WTI contract values for May 2018 delivery traded during the five-day period ending February 1, 2018, suggest a range of USD55/b to USD77/b encompasses the market expectation for May 2018 WTI prices at the 95% confidence level.

EIA estimates that U.S. crude oil production averaged 10.2 million barrels per day (b/d) in January, up 100,000 b/d from the December level. EIA estimates that total U.S. crude oil production averaged 9.3 million b/d in 2017 and will average 10.6 million b/d in 2018, which would mark the highest annual average U.S. crude oil production level, surpassing the previous record of 9.6 million b/d set in 1970. EIA forecasts that 2019 crude oil production will average 11.2 million b/d.

EIA estimates that global petroleum and other liquid fuels inventories declined by 0.5 million b/d in 2017. In this forecast, global inventories grow by about 0.2 million b/d in both 2018 and 2019.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA has held "positive" talks with a potential partner for the construction of a new refining unit in Rio de Janeiro state, reported Reuters with reference to the company’s Chief Executive Officer Pedro Parente.

Parente told reporters during a meeting in Rio that Petrobras, as the company is known, expects to choose the partner for the project in about three months. It will be the first time the firm will work with an investor in a refining complex in Brazil.

As MRC wrote before, in late December 2016m, Petrobras said its board had approved the sale of two petrochemical companies, Petroquimica Suape and Citepe, to Mexico's Alpek SAB de CV for USD385 million.

Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated energy firm. Petrobras' activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related activities.
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MOSCOW (MRC) – Honeywell announced the launch of its first industrial cyber security center of excellence (COE) at its Middle East headquarters in Dubai, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The new COE is a pioneering technology center with a safe off-process environment to test and demonstrate process control network vulnerabilities and threats, train customers with real-time attack simulations and provide advanced customer consultations.

Honeywell's first industrial cyber security center of excellence (COE) at its Middle East headquarters in Dubai.
The COE further demonstrates Honeywell’s commitment to address the industrial cyber security needs of customers in the Middle East region by leveraging globally proven expertise, technology and solutions. This investment comes in support of regional government initiatives such as the Dubai Cyber Security Strategy, aiming to strengthen cyber security defenses amidst growing digital transformation across industries. The new center will support a rapidly developing Middle East cyber security market.

“This COE is the first of its kind dedicated to developing world-class industrial cyber security expertise for our customers in the region,” said Jeff Zindel, vice president and general manager, Honeywell Industrial Cyber Security. “It provides a safe, real-world environment to learn in, allowing us to innovate and augment industrial cyber security skills. The center is also a critical part of Honeywell’s network of global Cyber Security COEs dedicated to improving industrial cyber security for critical infrastructure, information technology and operational technology (IT/OT) convergence and digital transformation."

The center contains distributed control systems, a physical plant process and the latest industrial cyber security software and solutions. It includes data analytics and networking equipment capable of supporting unique training sessions, demonstrations, workshops, and cyber-attack simulations. The facility is led by a full-time operations team with deep industrial cyber security expertise and operational technology knowledge fundamental to help customers stay ahead of cyber threats.

"As threats to industrial control environments become more sophisticated, it will be crucial to train the workforce of the industry for effective cyber security implementation,” said Safdar Akhtar, business development director of Industrial Cyber Security for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Honeywell Process Solutions. “At the center, we are able to demonstrate cyber security solutions and controls in attack scenarios to show which of them are most effective at combatting various attacks."

The center was inaugurated by Jeff Zindel during a launch event that showcased the solutions within the COE, followed by a demonstration of real-time cyber-attack scenarios and the effectiveness of advanced cyber security controls.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Austrian elastomer injection moulding machinery maker Maplan is well on the way to opening a new EUR4.5m product assembly hall, part of a plant expansion project at Malacky in Slovakia, as per Plasticsnewseurope.

A formal hall topping-out ceremony was staged at the site, north of the Slovak capital Bratislava, this week and Kottingbrunn, Austria-based Maplan is due to open the plant extension at the end of March.

Since 2015, the machinery supplier has been manufacturing control cabinets at Malacky industrial park and currently employs a Slovakia workforce of around 20 at the plant.

Maplan intends to extend pre-production work at the 30,000m2 Slovak site and to start component assembly. From April 2018, it plans to begin the production of metal parts and prefabricated hydraulics as well as turning out assemblies.

Construction of the EUR20m Malacky expansion, where Maplan plans to create another 50 jobs, began last August. The company already has a 3,500m2 workshop and a 400m2 office building on the site where Maplan has potential for further growth.

Malacky site was originally chosen for its ideal location in respect of local infrastructure and situation between Bratislava and Vienna.

Components and assemblies already pre manufactured at Malacky plant were destined to prime machinery production for the Asian market launched at a Maplan plant in China from last September.

That was when Maplan launched production at its new 4,000m2 plant in Wujin near Shanghai, China. Two main machine types: vertical machines of 250 tonnes and up to 400 tonnes were initially manufactured at the facility as the new Asian offshoot took immediate orders for five machines for 2018, Maplan said last year.

The new operation, launched to enable Maplan to offer European quality alongside the region’s service and speedy delivery, has an annual capacity of 200 machines per year.

In 2016, Maplan inaugurated a production plant at its brand new group headquarters site in Kottingbrunn, Austria after moving work from nearby at Ternitz. Last year, the group reported a switch from individual manufacturing to line production in the new plant has enabled it to double annual production capacity to over 500 machines and to reduce throughput times by almost a third.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Full Apex (Holdings) has announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Pan-Asia PET Resin (Guangzhou) Co., is investing USD 3 billion (SGD 4 billion) to build a petrochemical and chemical fiber integrated project in the Jazan Economic City (JEC) in Saudi Arabia, as per GV.

Pan Asia is currently an investor and manufacturer of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin in China.

The group plans for the project to be constructed in three stages, starting from 2018.

The first stage will include the construction of a PET plant and a purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant, with capacity of 500,000 t/y and 1.25 million t/y, respectively.

The project is located near a refinery complex currently being built by Saudi Aramco – the world’s largest oil company - which is expected to have a crude oil processing capacity of up to 20 million t/y. Paraxylene (PX) produced by Saudi Aramco’s refinery will be used to produce PTA and PET.

It adds that it is considering various ways to finance the project, including loans from Saudi Industrial Development Fund, and capital funds from strategic partners.
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