PS plant brought on-stream by DFE Chemical

MOSCOW (MRC) -- DFE Chemical has restarted its polystyrene (PS) plant following a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in the Philippines informed that the company has resumed operations at the plant on April 2, 2018. The plant was shut for maintenance in mid-December 2017.

Located in Manila, the Philippines, the plant has a production capacity of 30,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, in October 2017, Petrochemicals Malaysia, a subsidiary of Idemitsu Kosan Co, took off-stream its PS plant for a six-week turnaround. Located at Pasir Gudang in Johor state of Malaysia, the plant has a production capacity of 120,000 mt/year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- CB&I has announced it has been awarded a contract by CNOOC Ningbo Daxie Petrochemical Co., Ltd. for the license and process design engineering of a 300 kta polypropylene (PP) plant in Ningbo, China, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The plant will use CB&I's Novolen technology and proprietary Novolen High Performance catalyst to produce a full range of PP products, with a focus on high-end copolymers.

"CB&I's Novolen technology is proven, competitive and innovative," said Daniel M. McCarthy, CB&I's Executive Vice President of Technology. "By licensing this technology, CNOOC Daxie will be able to produce a wide range of polypropylene products and meet China's increasing demand for these high-end products."

As MRC reported earlier, CB&I has also announced it has been awarded a contract by Hainan Huasheng New Material Technology Co. Ltd. for the license and engineering design for a diphenyl carbonate (DPC) petrochemical unit in Hainan Province, China. The unit will use Versalis' DPC technology licensed by CB&I to produce diphenyl carbonate intermediate, which is used for the production of polycarbonate.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Austria's Engel Holding GmbH is expanding the reach of its Chinese subsidiary Wintec into North America and Brazil, using the upcoming NPE show to begin selling Wintec's standard grade injection molding machines in the United States, as per Plasticsnewseurope.

Wintec, which is based in Changzhou, China, has focused on Asia since launching as a separate unit within Engel in 2014. But Engel now says it sees opportunities for Wintec's offering of simpler machines in Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States, in areas like single-component molding, where special technologies may not be needed.

"In addition to sophisticated applications that require tailor-made injection molding solutions, we see a strong demand in America for injection molding machines that handle standard applications," said Engel Chief Strategy Officer Christoph Steger. "By expanding the sales area to the American markets, as the Engel Group we can provide tailored solutions at an attractive price/performance ratio."

The company said it will offer its hydraulic Wintec t-win series from 500 tons to 1,900 tons clamping force, and its electric e-win series from 55 to 310 tons clamping force.

The company said it plans to start selling the machines in the American markets in May and has already set up a network of local service technicians, along with a spare parts warehouse.

Longtime Engel executive Peter Auinger will head the new push as Wintec President Americas. Auinger started the Wintec operations in China, and prior to that had been head of Engel's subsidiary in Mexico.

Wintec machines are not customized, but instead are delivered preconfigured, shortening lead times.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Environmental Protection Agency has exempted one of the nation’s largest oil refining companies, Andeavor, from complying with U.S. biofuels regulations - a waiver historically reserved for tiny operations in danger of going belly up, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The exemption, which applies to the three smallest of Andeavor’s ten refineries, marks the first evidence of the EPA freeing a highly profitable multi-billion dollar company from the costly mandates of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard. The law requires refiners to blend biofuels such as ethanol into gasoline or purchase credits from those who do such blending.

The decision, which has not been previously reported, raises the question of whether other big and profitable oil firms with small refineries - such as Exxon Mobil Corp, Chevron Corp and Phillips 66 - also have or could receive the waivers, which are granted by the EPA in secret.

Such waivers were designed for refineries producing less than 75 Mbpd that can demonstrate that they suffer a “disproportionate economic hardship” from the costs of RFS compliance.

Andeavor posted net profits of about USD1.5 billion last year.

The EPA exemption, granted about a month ago, could reduce Andeavor’s regulatory costs by more than USD50 million this year, based on the number of biofuels credits that two brokers say the refiner recently sold into the market, along with previous disclosures by firms that own refineries of a similar size.

The exemption releases the firm of its obligation to provide the EPA with biofuels credits proving compliance at the three refineries - two located in North Dakota and one in Utah - for the year 2016, which would have come due this year, the sources said. Andeavor is also asking EPA for a waiver for its 2017 obligations for the same refineries, but has not yet received a decision, the sources said.

Andeavor spokeswoman Destin Singleton declined to comment. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman did not immediately comment in response to Reuters inquiries on Monday and Tuesday.

As a matter of policy, the agency refuses to release any information on the waivers, or to name their recipients, citing concerns over disclosing private business information. The EPA denied a Freedom of Information Act request from Reuters seeking information on companies receiving the waivers.

Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Phillips 66 also own refineries small enough to meet the barrel-per-day standard, as does billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn - whose efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program drew scrutiny from federal investigators.

Icahn, majority owner of refiner CVR Energy, had served as an advisor to Trump on regulatory issues during his push to reform biofuels regulations early last year, but he resigned amid allegations that the role gave him a conflict of interest.

Spokespeople for all four companies declined to comment on whether they had applied for or received any exemptions.

The lucrative waivers are typically only reported if a publicly-traded firm considers them to be material to their financial or operational performance, in which case they must disclose the information through Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The RFS has long been a lightning rod of conflict between the corn lobby, which supports the policy as an engine for demand, and refiners who say it costs them a fortune.

The White House has sought to broker a deal between two of its key political constituencies in a series of meetings, but the effort has failed to yield policy changes acceptable to both sides.

Ethanol industry advocates argue exemptions for refiners undermine the intent of the law, originally designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce dependence on foreign oil and boost farm economies.

While the EPA’s motives in providing hardship waivers are unclear, the exemptions are one of the tools at the administration’s disposal to ease financial pressure on refiners without undertaking a reform of the RFS policy.

EPA chief Scott Pruitt, appointed by Trump, has repeatedly said the RFS is too costly to oil refiners and should be overhauled. But Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, told an agriculture conference in February that Trump "stands with corn farmers, biofuels farmers and the RFS," according to a recording heard by Reuters.

White House spokeswoman Kelly Love did not respond to a question about whether the administration was expanding the use of the RFS waivers to help refiners. Bowman, of the EPA, also did not comment on the question.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - China’s new crude oil futures contract, which began trading this week, has a good chance of confounding the doubters and becoming a regional benchmark where other contracts have failed, as per Reuters.

The history of futures and options trading is littered with new contracts launched amid great fanfare but which subsequently failed to develop sufficient liquidity and have been discontinued or faded into irrelevance.

But the new crude futures contract launched on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange comes after years of meticulous preparation and has many of the ingredients needed to be successful.

Three elements determine the success or failure of a new futures contract, according to an extensive literature review prepared for the Shanghai Futures Exchange three years ago.

The contract must fulfill a commercial need for hedging. It must succeed in attracting a pool of speculators. And public policy must not be too adverse (“Why some futures contracts succeed and others fail”, Till, 2014).

China’s new oil futures contract clearly meets the first two criteria and has a fair chance of succeeding on the third as well.
MRC