Milliken to showcased innovative polyurethane additives

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Milliken & Co. plans to showcase its standing as a leading supplier of polyurethane additives, while also rolling out some new offerings at the upcoming UTECH 2018 show, as per the company's press release.

UTECH - to be held May 29-31 in Maastricht, The Netherlands - is the foremost international exhibition and conference for the global polyurethanes industry.

Milliken will display the broad portfolio of existing products it currently offers to the PU industry, including its Reactint colorants, and its Milliguard and AlphaSan additives. At the same time, it will highlight a new range of colorants that deliver brighter, stronger, more intense and more effective shades to PU foam.

The company also will be showcasing its newly released "ColorDirection 2019" - a prediction of the color palette that Milliken experts see emerging in the consumer space next year. "After an extended phase exposed to high-contrast colors, we expect consumer preferences to shift firmly away from the artificial," the company predicts, with 2019 poised to feature honest, authentic colors that are bright yet as real as possible.

Milliken will also display a mattress on its UTECH stand to help demonstrate how its Reactint colorants deliver deep shades across a wide colorspace, while allowing the brand owner to achieve an optimal market differentiation and brand recognition.

Milliguard AOX antioxidant protects polyurethane and other thermoset polymers from oxidation and degradation. Specially designed to support polyol suppliers, polyurethane flexible foamers, mattress converters and other PU producers, it improves the quality and durability of final PU parts by preventing odor-causing degradation byproducts and discoloration caused by exposure to light, heat and NOx. This polymeric additive also helps producers to meet stringent environmental and air quality standards by reducing volatile organic compound (VOC) and outgassing condensation (FOG) emissions.

"Milliken continues to develop technologies that help to improve vehicle interior air quality and meet the newest, most stringent automotive industry requirements," notes Antoni Puig, product line manager, EMEA - PU Colorants & Additives. "The new Milliguard AS aldehyde scavenger additive complements our existing Milliguard AOX technology in reducing the generation of aldehydes in PU foam."

Milliguard UVX UV absorbers protect PU from yellowing and degradation caused by exposure to UV light. Supplied in liquid form for easy handling and metering, they help PU producers and converters to deliver fresh, long-lasting PU products with lower VOC and FOG emissions. These UV absorbers, reactive in nature, are widely used in PU for furniture and bedding, building insulation and automotive applications.

Milliken, meanwhile, also will display its AlphaSan AG additive, which delivers microbial protection through the power of Silver, and AlphaSan AF, which is a stable dispersion of a highly functional antifungal active ingredient.

As MRC reported previously, at this spring’s Hispack 2018 trade fair in Spain, Milliken Chemical showcased containers of NX UltraClear polypropylene made using its Millad NX 8000 clarifier, and highlighting why that material is the preferred solution for packaging.

Milliken is an innovation company that has been exploring, discovering, and creating ways to enhance people’s lives since 1865. The company creates coatings, specialty chemicals, and advanced additive and colorant technologies that transform the way we experience products from automotive plastics to children's art supplies.
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KBR ethylene technology based revamp project completed at KPIC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- KBR, Inc. has recently announced the successful completion of the ethylene plant revamp project for Korea Petrochemical Ind. Co., Ltd (KPIC) in Ulsan, Korea, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Under the terms of the contract, KBR provided its proprietary Selective Cracking Optimum Recovery (SCORETM) technology license, basic engineering design and proprietary equipment supply services to expand KPIC's existing plant ethylene capacity from 486 KTA to 800 KTA. The revamp included the addition of two new highly selective SC-1 proprietary furnaces and targeted product recovery system modifications to provide superior yield, energy and operational performance.

"KBR is honored that KPIC selected KBR's SCORETM Ethylene Technology for this strategic revamp project," said John Derbyshire KBR President, Technology. "The close cooperation between our teams resulting in the successful completion of this project is a testament to KPIC's One Project - One Team spirit."

KBR has been a leader in olefin plant design, construction and technology development for more than 50 years. Since 1990, over 20 new ethylene plants with a combined capacity of 13 million metric tons per year have been brought on-stream using KBR's cost-effective, cracking technologies and flexible plant designs to produce ethylene, propylene and other byproducts from a variety of feedstocks. SCORETM technology is an innovative and differentiated technology backed by extensive ethylene operating experience that improves operability and reliability while reducing production costs.

As MRC wrote before, in July 2015, KPIC awarded GS Engineering & Construction a USD270-million contract to increase ethylene capacity to 800,000 t/y and aromatics capacity to 300,000 t/y from 220,000 t/y currently. The project also includes the capacity to produce 150,000 t/y of propylene.
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Gazprom Neft to create pilot domestic industrial digital production platform

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Gazprom Neft and AI-solutions company Zyfra have concluded a Cooperation Agreement on implementing a new digital initiative, "Digital Plant" (signed by Anatoly Cherner, Deputy CEO for Logistics, Processing and Sales, Gazprom Neft and Igor Bogachev, CEO, Zyfra at this year’s St Petersburg International Economic Forum, as per the company's press release.

The "Digital Plant" initiative forms part of a Gazprom Neft project to create Russia’s first holistic digital platform for the production, distribution and sales of oil products. Work in this area has been ongoing at the company since 2017 and envisages the involvement of leading companies in the Russian IT market - of which Zyfra is one.

The Digital Plant pilot project will be established within the company’s Gazpromneft Bitumen Materials subsidiary: the objective of transformation here being to introduce digital monitoring systems for production and quality control.

The core IT framework is expected to be in place by the end of 2018, as well as AI systems monitoring the movements of raw and other materials, together with advanced software packages to optimize economic and material accounting for the enterprise’s balance sheet. Once digitized process data is in place the project will move on to its second phase - developing a system of "digital twins" of production infrastructure facilities, monitoring reliability and process parameters in operating equipment.

(Gazprom Neft and AI-solutions company Zyfra have concluded a Cooperation Agreement on implementing a new digital initiative, “Digital Plant” (signed by Anatoly Cherner, Deputy CEO for Logistics, Processing and Sales, Gazprom Neft and Igor Bogachev, CEO, Zyfra at this year’s St Petersburg International Economic Forum.)

This digital platform will integrate, store and process data, providing Gazprom Neft specialists with visualizations of changes in key production parameters. The system will be integrated into the company’s wider IT architecture for logistics, processing and sales, in the longer term.

The implementation of the agreement will be driven by the Gazprom Neft Digital Innovations Centre, established by the company to identify and implement technological solutions in Big Data, predictive management, and creating "digital twins" in production infrastructure.

Anatoly Cherner, Deputy CEO for Logistics, Processing and Sales, Gazprom Neft, commented: "Gazprom Neft continues to strengthen its market leadership in operational efficiency, with recent years having seen us implement dozens of digital projects. Developing an IT platform to manage industrial production is a further step forward in our company’s development. Partnering with Zyfra in creating practical industrial solutions and developing AI technologies opens up new opportunities for improving our business efficiency."

Igor Bogachev, CEO, Zyfra, added: "We see the development of applied functional solutions - a library of 'artificial intelligence' in enterprise management - as both extremely promising and important, and something which could, in future, be available commercially to other companies in the oil and gas industry, and others."

As MRC informed previously, in October 2017, Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft, through its subsidiary Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), started construction of a new deep conversion complex (DCC) at its Pancevo Refinery in Serbia with an investment of over EUR300m. The new complex will be equipped with delayed coking technology. It is anticipated to be ready in 2019 and will help NIS to start production of petroleum coke (pet coke) which is currently not done in the country.
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Unipetrol completes largest turnaround in its history at Kralupy Refinery

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Unipetrol has completed the planned six-week turnaround of its refinery in Kralupy nad Vltavou and has fully restored its operation, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The total maintenance and modernization costs exceeded one billion crowns of which CZK 400 million were spent on new investment projects. Unipetrol performs regular turnarounds of its refineries according to the legislative requirements in roughly five-year cycles. The previous turnaround of the Kralupy Refinery took place in 2013.

"The shutdown is a planned halting of production, the primary reason being the regular maintenance of all technologies in the area according to legislative and technical and technological requirements. It is also an opportunity to implement investment projects and technological changes that we would otherwise have to install while operating or during a partial downtime, which could have an impact on the smoothness and economic efficiency of the operation," explained Jaroslav Hacko, Production Manager of the Unipetrol Group’s Kralupy nad Vltavou Refinery.

The turnaround at the Kralupy Refinery was the largest in its history. Compared to the past, it differed in the volume of service and investment work. "In addition to the detailed inspection and maintenance of all facilities, we have modernized the technologies in the main production units. In advance, we have thereby met the legislative requirements of the European Union and the Czech Republic to implement the so-called Best Available Techniques (BAT) that will come into force in 2020," said Jaroslav Hacko: "The restart of the production units was accompanied by temporary sound and lights effects. We apologize to all residents of the surrounding towns and villages for these inconveniences," he added.

The refinery and petrochemical group Unipetrol is the only crude oil processor in the Czech Republic, an important producer of fuels, plastics and fertilizers, and the owner of the Benzina petrol station network, which, with its 402 stations, is the largest network in the Czech Republic. Oil is fed to the Czech Republic from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline. From Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Arab and African countries, oil flows through the IKL pipeline (Ingolstadt - Kralupy nad Vltavou - Litvinov), which follows the TAL oil pipeline from Trieste, Italy. In the Czech Republic, two Unipetrol refineries process the imported crude oil - in Kralupy nad Vltavou and Zaluzi u Litvinova, where the related production of petrochemical products is based. The total volume of oil supplies to the Czech Republic reaches eight million tons a year, of which approximately one third is processed in the Kralupy nad Vltavou refinery.

As MRC reported earlier, in April 2017, technology, engineering and project management company Neste Jacobs and refinery and petrochemical group Unipetrol signed an agreement for Neste Jacobs to perform a comprehensive energy efficiency study of Unipetrol's Litvinov oil refinery in Czech Republic.

Unipetrol , a.s. is a group of companies operating in the petrochemical industry in the Czech Republic. In 2005 Unipetrol became a part of the PKN ORLEN Group, the largest oil processor in Central Europe. The UNIPETROL Group is oriented mostly towards oil processing, fuel distribution and petrochemical production. In all of these business areas the Unipetrol Group is among the key players both in the Czech Republic and on the Central European market. The Group ranks among the leading firms in the Czech Republic in terms of its revenues, and employs almost 4,000 people.
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Valero signs long-term agreements to supply refined products to northern Mexico

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Valero Marketing and Supply de Mexico, S.A. de C.V., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Valero Energy Corporation, has announced that it has signed long-term agreements to directly supply refined products into northern Mexico from its Corpus Christi and Three Rivers, Texas, refineries via a pipeline and terminal expansion in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, recently announced by NuStar Energy, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This transaction enhances Valero’s existing infrastructure for supplying northern Mexico and improves the efficiency of fuel delivery into this area. The company expects to begin delivering products through this expanded facility by year-end. "This agreement is another step in our strategy to extend Valero’s supply chain," said Gary Simmons, Senior Vice President Marketing & Supply. "This transaction combined with our agreements to supply central Mexico demonstrates our commitment to efficiently supply gasoline and diesel to the growing Mexican markets and will further strengthen our distribution presence, including branded sales."

In August 2017, Valero announced a long-term agreement with IEnova to import refined products at the new Port of Veracruz and distribute into central Mexico. IEnova won the Port of Veracruz’s bid for a 20-year concession to build and operate a new terminal with 1.4 million barrels of storage capacity, which has since expanded to 2.1 million barrels.

In addition, IEnova is building two inland storage terminals strategically located near Puebla and Mexico City that will be supplied by rail. Valero has exclusive use of all three terminals. IEnova expects the Veracruz terminal to start operations by the end of second-quarter 2019, with the inland terminals coming online in third-quarter 2019.

As MRC reported before, in early May 2018, CB&I has announced that its CDAlky technology had been selected by Valero Refining - New Orleans LLC for its St. Charles Alkylation Project located in Norco, Louisiana
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