Sinopec Zhenhai restarts SM plant in China

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Company plans has restarted its 620,000 mt/year styrene monomer (SM) plant at Zhenhai in eastern China's Zhejiang province June 10, following planned maintenance, as per Apic-online.

The plant was taken offline April 21, in line with planned maintenance at its upstream naphtha-fed steam cracker over the same period.

The cracker is able to produce 1 million mt/year of ethylene, 550,000 mt/year of propylene and 180,000 mt/year of butadiene.

As MRC informed before, on 2 January, 2018, Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical took off-stream a high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant owing to technical issues. Further details of duration of shutdown could not be ascertained. Located at Shanghai in China, the plant has a production capacity of 250,000 mt/year.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec Limited is a Chinese oil and gas company based in Beijing, China. It is listed in Hong Kong and also trades in Shanghai and New York . Sinopec is the worlds fifth biggest company by revenue.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mexico’s Pemex said that a fire at its Minatitlan refinery was under control and the plants were operating normally, as per Reuters.

The state-run oil company said the fire at its facilities in the southern state of Veracruz had been put out by 7 a.m. There were no injuries, the company added.

Pemex said it would investigate the cause of the incident.

As MRC informed earlier, in November 2015, Fluor Corp. announced that ICA Fluor, its industrial engineering and construction joint venture with Empresas ICA, had signed a contract with Pemex to supply detail engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for the utilities and offsites that are part of the Tula refinery upgrade at Hidalgo, Mexico. The total contract value is USD1.1 billion.

Pemex, Mexican Petroleum, is a Mexican state-owned petroleum company. Pemex has a total asset worth of USD415.75 billion, and is the world's second largest non-publicly listed company by total market value, and Latin America's second largest enterprise by annual revenue as of 2009. Company produces such polymers, as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global specialty materials company, has announced it will increase the price for Vinyl Acetate Ethylene (EVA) emulsions sold in Europe, as per the company's press release.

The price increase of EUR100/mt is for orders shipped on or after June 15, 2018.

Celanese has also increased list and off-list selling prices for Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) sold in China and Asia Outside China (AOC) by RMB200/mt for China and USD50/mt for AOC.

As MRC reported earlier, Celanese raised its June prices for VAM sold in Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Americas, as follows:

- by EUR150/mt - for Europe, Middle East & Africa;
- by USD0.05/lb - for the USA and Canada:
- by USD150/mt - for Mexico & South America.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,600 employees worldwide and had 2017 net sales of USD6.1 billion.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Siemens und Evonik are to enter into a technology partnership. Its aim is the development of an asset life cycle data model and its integration into the Siemens software solution Comos, as per Evonik's press release.

The asset life cycle data model was developed by Evonik on the basis of the international DEXPI standard ISO 15956 and other internationally valid standards. Its aim is to cover all the elements and structures of relevance for the chemical industry in a single integrated data model across the entire life cycle - from product development, equipment planning and operation to final decommissioning. Siemens and Evonik develop an application providing software support for the whole engineering and operation process. The outcome of this cooperative process will become an integral part of the Comos software portfolio.

"I’m delighted that we’ll be stepping up what is already a long-standing association built on mutual trust and creating a new technology partnership," said Eckard Eberle, CEO of the Process Automation (PD PA) Business Unit and Director of the Siemens booth at the Achema 2018. "This partnership also underpins Siemens’ digitalization strategy surrounding the Digital Enterprise for the process industries."

Dr. Wilhelm Otten, Head of Process Technology & Engineering at Evonik Technology & Infrastructure GmbH, confirmed: "We see Siemens as the ideal partner to provide us worldwide with technological and application support in mapping out our data model."

The application Siemens and Evonik will be developing jointly will be based on the Comos engineering platform and will use the complete Evonik data model, which covers all the necessary functional features and the corresponding data scope. This also includes interfaces for the input of data generated by upstream process simulations or other process development steps, meaning that as an engineering platform, Comos offers all the possibilities required to successfully map the consistency, flexibility and functionality required for the data model. Consistency is ensured in Comos by the software’s object orientation, whereby an object is defined as any graphical or data-related description of a plant component. Any associated data sheets, lists or other documents are directly linked to the relevant object. The flexibility offered by Comos is due to its open system architecture, which allows Comos to be adapted to specific customer requirements and linked to third-party systems.

As MRC reported previously, half a year after the announcement of the 2030 strategy, MOL Group has reached an important milestone in its industrial transformational journey. The license agreements signed with Evonik and thyssenkrupp in early August 2017, will enable MOL to produce propylene oxide, a key component for the production of polyether polyols. MOL intends to become a significant producer of polyether polyols, high-value intermediates for products applied in the automotive, packaging and furniture industries.

Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for 170 years. The company is active around the globe, focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalization. In fiscal 2017, which ended on September 30, 2017, Siemens generated revenue of €83.0 billion and net income o EUR6.2 billion. At the end of September 2017, the company had around 377,000 employees worldwide.

Evonik is one of the world leaders in specialty chemicals. The focus on more specialty businesses, customer-orientated innovative prowess and a trustful and performance-oriented corporate culture form the heart of Evonik’s corporate strategy. Evonik is active in over 100 countries around the world with more than 36,000 employees. In fiscal 2017, the enterprise generated sales of EUR14.4 billion and an operating profit (adjusted EBITDA) of EUR2.36 billion.
MRC

MOSCOW (Market Report) - Imports of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) to Russia amounted to about 9,300 tonnes in January-May of this year, down 60% year on year. At the same time, the low demand from the domestic market forced Russian producers to increase export volumes by 30%, according to MRC DataScope report.

May imports of SPVC in the country fell to 237 tonnes against 3,400 tonnes a month earlier; increase in export prices and the devaluation of the rouble against the dollar in April contributed to the almost complete SPVC purchases in China. Total SPVC imports into Russia amounted to about 9,300 tonnes in the first five months of this year against 23,600 tonnes a year earlier.

At the same time, Russian producers had to ship PVC more actively this year due to the low demand from the domestic market, export sales increased by almost a third. The key external suppliers of PVC for several years have traditionally been producers from China.

May imports of acetylene PVC from China significantly decreased to 237 tonnes against 3,200 tonnes a month earlier. In general, acetylene PVC imports from China in the first five months of the year decreased to about 8,400 tonnes against 21,800 tonnes a year earlier.

Imports of acetylene PVC is expected to increase slightly in June. As it was already reported, at the same time, Russian producers had to increase export volumes, although since March, export sales have declined.

Exports of SPVC from Russia exceeded 48,000 tonnes in January - May of this year versus 37,000 tonnes a year earlier.


MRC