China's private chemical giant Hengli wins approval for crude oil quota

MOSCOW (MRC) - Chinese private chemical producer Hengli Group has won state approval to import 400 Mbpd crude oil, the largest quota ever for a private refiner, as it challenges the country's smaller independent plants in an oversupplied Chinese fuel market, as per Reuters.

The group's listed unit Hengli Petrochemical said in an exchange filing late on Thursday that the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the state economic planner, had approved the quota. The firm aims to start trial runs in October at a newly built refinery in the northeastern port city of Dalian that will be among the five biggest refineries in China.

"We will start using our quota this year," said a senior Hengli official, who declined to be identified because he was authorized to speak to the media. "We hope to get enough allowances for the refinery to start trial operations in October."

Another private chemical firm, Zhejiang Ronsheng Group, is also expected to start operating a new 400 Mbpd refinery in the eastern city of Zhoushan later this year.

The additional production capacity in China is likely to add to pressure on the country's small, independent, or "teapot", refineries, which are vulnerable to increased competition because of their modest output. Many "teapot" refineries produce less than 100 Mbpd. "Hengli's world-class scale, sophisticated refinery configuration that favors high-end petrochemicals and its location means it will be a killer competitor to teapots," said Harry Liu.

With the government stepping up scrutiny over their tax and environmental practices, Liu predicted some of the smaller of the independents close in the next two years as a result of the competition.

Hengli started as a small chemical fiber maker and operates a 6.6 million tonnes per year plant making purified terephthalic acid (PTA), the world's largest. PTA is a feedstock for producing polyester.

Although the NDRC grants approval for quotas, the Commerce Ministry determines how much of a quota can be put to use. "For next year, we are confident of getting 20 million tonnes of allowances from the government," the senior Hengli official said.

He said the refinery's two crude distillation units (CDU) are designed to process 30 percent of Saudi Arabia's Arab Medium crude, 60 percent of Saudi Heavy and 10 percent Qatar Marine crude. The company has recently applied for a quota to export fuel oil.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Richmond Hill, Ont.-based blow molding machine manufacturer W. Amsler Equipment Inc. will play a key role in the making of craft beer that will be sold throughout the week of NPE2018 in Orlando, Fla, as per Canplastics.

The family-owned company, which supplies all-electric linear PET stretch blow molders, oversaw all design, technical, and manufacturing work for production of 12 ounce long-neck containers which were filled off-site in Orlando, according to Heidi Amsler, marketing manager for Amsler. The beer will be sold in the Beer Garden, which is part of NPE’s Bottle Zone – an area consisting of 40 exhibitors who work in PET packaging.

Amsler’s general manager Bruce Coxhead and Heidi Amsler worked with numerous suppliers and vendors including Bill Droste, a partner with Orlando Brewing in Orlando who had a pre-existing arrangement to supply beer in glass containers with the Orange County Convention Center. Droste worked closely with Amsler and among his requirements were a 12 ounce long-neck bottle with a panel diameter similar to glass. Amsler had to maintain the bottle height for filling but shortened the shoulder to compensate for the wall thickness in a glass bottle.

Amsler reached out to its mold partner Mold Spec, headquartered in Stoney Creek, Ont., who utilized their own patented base for the bottle. The bottle design was approved by Orlando Brewing and was reviewed by other brewers in Canada and the U.S. In a collaborative effort, the 12 ounce, 36 gram preform was designed by Amsler with assistance from Athena Automation and Yudo Valuepro. The preform was designed to accept a standard metal crown closure and was optimized for the required axial and diametrical stretch ratios as well as core and cavity draft for preform molding. Preforms were designed by Amsler to run on Athena equipment at its Ontario location.

For the barrier material, Amsler selected a monolayer structure with barrier additive which would allow the molding of PET preforms generally on any injection molding machine equipped for PET. Amsler used its single-cavity PET stretch blow molder to produce bottles for the NPE show. The 12 ounce barrier bottles are amber, with colour from REPI S.p.A. W. Amsler also created barrier clear bottles to target the growing cider market.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hyundai Engineering Co., the construction unit under South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group, won a 290 billion won (USD273.2 million) refinery project from a major Thai energy company, the latest in a string of deals it has struck in the region, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

On Thursday it signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Bangchak Corporation Public Company Ltd. (BCP) to build continuous catalyst regeneration reformers and replace old hydrocracking units at the oil refinery in the Phra Khanong district of Bangkok.

The new facilities would allow the production of premium high-octane petrol while the replaced hydrocracking units would boost the daily capacity of the refinery from 25,000 barrels to 27,500 barrels, according to Hyundai Engineering.

BCP is one of Thailand’s major energy companies, with its Bangchack refinery producing 120,000 barrels of oil per day that are distributed to more than 1,000 service stations across the country.

Hyundai Engineering said "We were able to clinch the deal as we had completed similar projects in Malaysia. We have also built up strong credentials having worked on various EPC projects with big petrochemical names in Thailand, including Siam Cement Group, PTT Group and Thai Oil Public Company".
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MOSCOW (MRC) – Yara International ASA and BASF announced the opening of a new world-scale ammonia plant in Freeport, Texas, USA, as per Hydrocaronprocessing.

The USD600-million, state-of-the-art facility uses a cost-efficient and sustainable production process, based on by-product hydrogen instead of natural gas.

Yara International and BASF executives joined with community members and business partners to celebrate the opening of a new world-scale ammonia plant in Freeport, Texas Pictured from left are Magnus Krogh Ankarstrand, Senior Vice President, Business Unit North America, Yara; Svein Tore Holsether, CEO and President, Yara; Martin Brudermuller, Vice Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors and Chief Technology Officer, BASF SE and Wayne T. Smith, Member of the Board of Executive Directors, BASF SE and Chairman and CEO, BASF Corporation.
Yara International and BASF executives joined with community members and business partners to celebrate the opening of a new world-scale ammonia plant in Freeport, Texas Pictured from left are Magnus Krogh Ankarstrand, Senior Vice President, Business Unit North America, Yara; Svein Tore Holsether, CEO and President, Yara; Martin Brudermuller, Vice Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors and Chief Technology Officer, BASF SE and Wayne T. Smith, Member of the Board of Executive Directors, BASF SE and Chairman and CEO, BASF Corporation.

Yara Freeport LLC is owned 68 percent by Yara and 32 percent by BASF. The plant, located at BASF’s site in Freeport, has a capacity of 750,000 metric tons of ammonia per year. Each party will off-take ammonia according to their ownership share.

"Together with our partners at BASF, we built a world-scale ammonia plant that not only raises the bar in terms of safety, efficiency and quality but also applies the principles of industrial symbiosis by using a by-product as feedstock for ammonia production," says Yara President and CEO, Svein Tore Holsether. "Yara Freeport strengthens our leading position in the global ammonia market and expands our production footprint in North America."

“This joint venture with Yara not only strengthens our production Verbund at the Freeport site, it demonstrates BASF’s commitment to investing in North America,” said Wayne T. Smith, member of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE and Chairman and CEO, BASF Corporation. “The new plant allows us to take advantage of world-scale production economics and attractive raw material costs to strengthen the competitiveness of our customer value chain in the region."

Conventional ammonia plants use natural gas to produce the hydrogen needed during ammonia production. Yara Freeport’s hydrogen-based technology allows the plant to forego this initial production step, leading to lower capital expenditure and maintenance costs. By using hydrogen, which originates from the production processes of various petrochemical plants nearby, Yara Freeport safeguards resources and mitigates environmental impact.
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MOSCOW (MRC) – Merichem Company, a technology company that licenses processes to remove sulfur from liquid and vapor streams, has won an order to supply a LO-CAT Sulfur recovery unit to Eni’s Gela Refinery in Sicily, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Basic engineering is already complete, and equipment is on order. Completion of the installation is anticipated in the summer of 2018.

Eni’s Green Refinery Project at the Gela Refinery is part of Eni’s commitment to the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive which set challenging targets for reduced emissions by the end of 2020. The Gela Refinery will utilize Ecofining technology developed by Eni to produce green diesel.

The Ecofining unit is part of the conversion of the idle plant to a biorefinery that will produce green refinery products from renewable sources such as palm oil and used vegetable oils. As a byproduct, the conversion process produces small amounts of hydrogen sulfide that must be removed to meet strict environmental standards.

The LO-CAT process is a patented, wet scrubbing, liquid redox system that uses a chelated iron solution to convert hydrogen sulfide to innocuous, elemental sulfur. It does not use any toxic chemicals and does not produce any hazardous waste byproducts. The catalyst is continuously regenerated in the process, so less catalyst is consumed, and more money is saved. The produced solid sulfur “cake” may be used as a fertilizer and soil conditioner.

The LO-CAT process is applicable to all types of gas streams, including air, natural gas, CO2, amine acid gas, biogas, landfill gas, refinery fuel gas, etc. The liquid catalyst adapts easily to variations in flow and concentration. Flexible operation allows 100% turndown in gas flow and H2S concentrations. Units require minimal operator attention.

More than 200 installations around the world depend on the LO-CAT® process to remove hydrogen sulfide from gas streams. The process is reliable, efficient, and economical, and is licensed with guarantees of H2S removal efficiency and sulfur removal capacity.
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