Renewable Energy Group completes USD32 M Ralston Biodiesel expansion

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Renewable Energy Group, Inc. celebrated with local, state and industry leaders the completion of upgrades at its Ralston, Iowa biorefinery increasing the production capacity from 12 to 30 million gallons per yearas, per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

REG invested USD32 million dollars to expand the production capacity as well as significant upgrades to logistics and storage capabilities.

“REG is positioned for long-term growth along with the entire biodiesel industry. We are proud of the project’s completion as it shows our ability to deliver more high quality products to meet market demand.” said Randy Howard, CEO. “The investment to further expand production was an easy decision for our company with the growth of our feedstock provider (Landus Cooperative) and the state of Iowa’s support of incentivizing higher biodiesel blends."

REG broke ground on this expansion in November of 2016 with an initial USD24 million commitment. As the project developed, REG invested USD8 million for additional improvements. First Midwest Bank provided USD20 million to partially finance the expansion.

In total, the project included 150,000 man hours and onsite peak manpower was up to 160 workers. The project was completed with zero recordable injuries.

"The Ralston plant was first built in 2002, as we moved forward with the expansion, we also took the time to improve key safety items including a fire protection system and a storm shelter,” said Derek Winkel, Executive Director, Manufacturing Operations. “Our new load out system enhances our ability to efficiently load and unload products for our transportation suppliers and customers."

REG Ralston is one of the company’s 13 biomass-based diesel refineries. REG has a combined effective production capacity of 565 million gallons per year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Total has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Oman to develop natural gas resources in Oman. This MoU covers both upstream and downstream businesses, as per the company's press-release.

Total and Shell as operator will develop several natural gas discoveries located in the Greater Barik area on onshore Block 6 with respective shares of 25% and 75%, as per the agreement between both companies and before possible State back-in, with the objective of an initial gas production of around 500 MMcfd and a potential to reach 1 bcf/d at a later stage.

Total will use its equity gas entitlement as feedstock to develop in Oman a regional hub for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) bunkering service to supply LNG as a fuel to marine vessels. This will be achieved thanks to a new small-scale modular liquefaction plant to be built in Sohar port. The plant will comprise a train of around 1 Mt per year and will offer the flexibility for expansion as required by the development of the LNG bunkering market.

"We are pleased to sign this MoU with the Sultanate of Oman that will give us access to new gas resources and the opportunity to develop an integrated gas project,” stated Arnaud Breuillac, President Exploration & Production at Total. "We will bring our expertise in LNG and will introduce access to a new gas market for the Sultanate. Developing an LNG bunkering service will generate in-country value and job opportunities, and will support industry diversification through fostering the shipping activity in Oman."
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Univar Inc., a global chemical and ingredient distributor and provider of value-added services has announced the expansion of their agreement with BASF to include the Care Chemicals business for the US Home, Industrial & Institutional, as well as Vehicle Care product lines, as per CISION PR Newswire.

As a leading supplier in North America, and with dedicated technical experts to help customers overcome their formulation and application challenges, Univar serves as a trusted advisor to customers in the Household & Industrial Cleaning (HIC) segment. BASF's Care Chemicals business offers a broad portfolio of products for the hygiene, personal care, home care, industrial & institutional cleaning, as well as technical applications. Additionally, BASF's leading position in the HIC market coupled with Univar's breadth of technical services, global network reach, and industry leading digital commerce platform, provides unmatched support for customer formulation needs.

"This expanded agreement means Univar customers will enjoy access to the complete range of HIC products within BASF's portfolio, while also enjoying the support of our dedicated HIC labs across the country and technical experts with excellent formulation competency. We continue to assess market needs so that we can offer our customers products and services designed to help them overcome challenges," said Aaron Lee, Univar's director of surfactants, chelants and HIC.

"Customers will also continue to benefit from our digital market leadership through the MyUnivar.com platform with its 24/7 access from any device, document downloads, two-click reordering, and Univar's entire catalog at their fingertips. By serving this market with these product lines, we will help customers stay ahead of industry trends like "Safer Choice," which will continue to gain popularity as millennials' buying power increases, and as regulations like REACH continue to expand," said Brian Jurcak, Univar's vice president of product management.

Founded in 1924, Univar is a global chemical and ingredient distributor and provider of value-added services, working with leading suppliers worldwide. Supported by a comprehensive team of sales and technical professionals with deep specialty and market expertise, Univar operates hundreds of distribution facilities throughout North America, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

As MRC informed previously, in December 2017, BASF’s Coatings division inaugurated a new automotive coatings plant at its Bangpoo manufacturing site, Samutprakarn province, Thailand. The new plant is the first BASF automotive coatings manufacturing facility in ASEAN, and will produce solventborne and waterborne automotive coatings to meet growing market demand in the region.

BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries. BASF generated sales of EUR64.5 billion in 2017.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- By adopting advanced automation technologies and new processes, unconventional oil and gas operators can move from average to top-quartile performance, capturing up to USD7 billion in profits annually, according to a recent study conducted by Emerson and industry benchmarking firms of onshore producers in the lower 48, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

In a "lower-for-longer" oil price environment, many companies are turning to Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies and the promise of digital transformation to help embed expertise in work processes, improve production and begin the path to operational excellence. Emerson’s Operational Certainty™ program helps oil and gas operators confidently deploy a digital transformation strategy in a targeted, scalable and measurable manner. Emerson estimates an average operator that adopts a comprehensive improvement program could see profitability improve by as much as 10 percent.

The analysis shows higher production rates, lower lease operating expenses (LOE) and a reduction in safety risks have the greatest impact on overall operational improvements. Improvement in these areas matters most to liquids-weighted unconventional oil and gas operators and helps them achieve top quartile performance. Top Quartile is defined as achieving operations and capital performance in the top 25 percent of peer companies and requires changing historic work processes across multiple functions.

For unconventional oil and gas operators, Emerson identified key technologies to quickly improve operations in a scalable way:
• Optimizing production with automated production surveillance, modeling and analytics and implementing produced fluids management techniques to reduce lost and unaccounted-for production
• Improving equipment reliability by leveraging analytics and automation diagnostics to lower LOE, providing greater visibility of costs per well
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- As part of the comprehensive partnership announced in 2017, Total has signed an agreement with Sonatrach to launch the engineering studies for a petrochemical project in Arzew, western Algeria, as per the company's press release.

The project includes a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit and a polypropylene production unit with an output capacity of 550,000 tons per year. The project represents an investment of around USD1.4 billion by the two partners (Sonatrach 51%, Total 49%), who are planning to start the front-end engineering and design (FEED) this summer, subject to approval by the relevant Algerian regulatory authorities. The facility will valorize propane, produced in large quantities locally, by transforming it into polypropylene, a plastic for which demand is growing strongly. It will supply in priority the local and Mediterranean demand and Total will be responsible for the commercialization of the rest of the production in Europe, where it will leverage its market expertise to the benefit of both partners.

"This project in Algeria illustrates our petrochemical growth strategy which consists of expanding our activities from competitively advantaged feedstock, especially derived from gas, to take advantage of the growing global plastics demand. This polypropylene project complements our other projects announced recently in the United States, in the Middle-East and in Asia, which are primarily focused on polyethylene” commented Patrick Pouyanne, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Total. "It is also an opportunity to strengthen our cooperation with Sonatrach, by moving beyond our long-standing exploration and production relationship to invest in the downstream together."
MRC