Total says no impact from farmers' blockade on refinery operations

MOSCOW (MRC) - France's Total said personnel from the oil and gas company had access to four refineries in France and a blockade of the sites by farmers had not had an impact on operations, as per Reuters.

Total, which operates four of France's seven refineries, said the blockade was, however, hampering the distribution of products by road from four refineries and six depots. It said service was normal at its 2,200 petrol stations in France.

French farmers blocked access to oil depots and refineries using tonnes of onions, wood and rubble as part of a three-day protest against plans to allow Total to use imported palm oil at a biofuel plant.

As per MRC, Total said that 3.5 percent of its petrol stations in France had run out of fuel on the second day of a blockade of refineries and fuel depots by farmers that has disrupted distribution. The blockade now concerned a total of 18 refineries and depots across France, and would continue until the farm minister agreed to some of the farmers' demands, said the FNSEA, the country's largest farm union, which is organizing the protests.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- KLAW LNG, the market and technical leaders in the design, manufacture, and application of ship-to-ship and bunkering LNG transfer systems has expanded its manufacturing and test facilities at the Great Yarmouth Technology Centre, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Signum Technology is committed to ensuring KLAW LNG continues to be the industry leader in LNG hose transfer systems. This significant additional investment has been made to support the growing customer demand for KLAW LNG transfer systems.

The investment is spread across various parts of the Great Yarmouth facility from manufacturing and assembly to systems testing. This includes: Horizontal CNC Lathe
Hi-TECH 850 provides a reliable precision production resource for the manufacture of KLAW LNG 8” and 10” Cryogenic High Flow Emergency Release Couplings.

LNG ERC assembly clean room and low-temperature testing
A dedicated clean assembly room has been created to fully assemble and test Cryogenic ERCs. Each valve has an ambient gas seat test and shell test followed by a low temp shell and seat test at -140 degrees C.

System FAT area
Additional workshop space is being developed in Great Yarmouth currently to allow expansion of the KLAW LNG offering and accommodate full acceptance testing.

Signum continues to invest in skilled workshop personnel and engineering staff to support order fulfillment and in-house manufacture of safety-critical components. To keep pace with demand, additional project and application engineers are also being added to the KLAW LNG design team at the Westbury UK Technology Centre.

KLAW LNG transfer systems provide offshore hose LNG transfer in ship-to-ship, shore-to-ship and bunkering. KLAW LNG Emergency Release Systems minimize the risk of LNG spillage by shutting down flow of LNG when an emergency occurs during transfer.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shanghai?Air Products has concluded upgrades to its Asia Technology Center in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai, China, as per Apic-online.

The enhanced center, equipped with state-of-the-art research and development capabilities, represents the company's recent investment to accelerate innovation to support the fast-paced development of the China and Asia markets through its advanced applications technologies, Air Products noted.

The center houses seven laboratories serving a wide range of high-growth markets in China and across Asia, including chemicals, new energy, environment, pharmaceuticals, advanced electronics, food and beverage and glassmaking.

"The upgraded Asia Technology Center speaks volumes about our long-term commitment to bringing innovative and sustainable solutions to the region's unique and pressing needs with speed," said Wilbur Mok, president of industrial gases for Asia at Air Products.

As MRC informed before, in May 2018, Air Products announced that it had inaugurated its new world-scale industrial gas complex within the Integrated Refinery Expansion Project (IREP) of the BPCL Kochi Refinery located in Kochi, India.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Naphtha flows fixed to the US from the Baltic region for June currently total around 60,000 mt on one vessel, data from S&P Global Platts trade flow software cFlow showed Thursday, remaining low after only 74,000 mt made the journey in May, down from 363,000 mt in April, as per Apic-online.

The BW Nile loaded in the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga around May 22 and is destined for discharge in New York in the first decade of June.

Only two vessels made the journey in May. The Ance loaded in mid to late April in Tallinn, Estonia and arrived in Houston in the first decade of May. The Seychelles Patriot also loaded in the first half of May in Karsto, Norway and arrived in New York Harbor May 26, cFlow shows.

The lower exports from Europe in May and June reflect weaker demand for light virgin naphtha on the trans-Atlantic route due in part to the grade's high-RVP blending properties, which is more expensive to blend down to meet summer-grade gasoline specifications.
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MOSCOW (MRC) – The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) announced today its plan to invest in an alkoxylation facility on the U.S. Gulf Coast, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Upon completion, this new facility will support global growth in Dow’s core end-markets related to infrastructure and home and personal care, as well as additional end-markets where Dow continues to strengthen its position for the TRITON™, TERGITOL™, ECOSURF™ and CARBOWAX™ SENTRY™ brands.

"We continue to see strong demand, well ahead of global GDP, across multiple consumer, industrial and manufacturing sectors,” said Ester Baiget, Business President for Dow Industrial Solutions. “These investments will build on Dow’s recent U.S. Gulf Coast investments; they will expand production capacity and enable Dow to meet customer and value chain needs for alkoxylate products."

The new alkoxylation facility is expected to come online by the end of 2021. This expansion is in addition to various incremental debottlenecking projects being conducted across Dow’s global alkoxylation production units. These projects will support growing customer demand across the Americas, Europe and Asia.

As MRC informed earlier, as part of DowDuPont Materials Science Division’s ongoing commitment to provide customers with greater access to expertise and products, the company announced that the technologies of Dow Corning Polyurethane Additives (PUA) will be incorporated into the Dow Polyurethanes portfolio under the Vorasurf polyurethane additives brand name.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
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