Some French petrol stations run dry as farmer blockade continues

MOSCOW (MRC) - Oil and gas major 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, as per Reuters.

Farmers are protesting against France's decision to allow Total to use imported palm oil at a biofuel plant, which would compete with biodiesel made from locally produced oilseed crops, further souring relations between the EU's biggest farm sector and the government of President Emmanuel Macron.

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.

"It is really an alarm call that 3,000 farmers on 18 blocked sites have sent out to say, please listen to us and take up this message at a European level," FNSEA President Christiane Lambert said after meeting Agriculture Minister Stephane Travert.

"The negotiation is not over, we do not have what we want. But by mutual agreement we decided to meet again at the end of the day to move forward on our claims," she added.

Total, which operates 2,200 petrol stations and five of France's seven refineries and nine depots, said the depots and four refineries were still blocked. The refineries were still operating.

"There are some difficulties in supplying petrol stations particularly in Paris and the Ile-de-France region," a Total spokesman said.
MRC

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

Pemex says fire under control at Minatitlan refinery

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

Celanese to raise prices of EVA emulsions in Europe

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

Evonik and Siemens partner up for chems data management scheme

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