ADNOC aims to deepen investment and partnership opportunities with Chinese energy majors

MOSCOW (MRC) -- His Excellency Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) Group CEO, held a series of meetings with Chinese oil, gas, refining and petrochemical industry leaders, focused on expanding and deepening investment and partnership opportunities across ADNOC’s integrated Upstream and Downstream value chain, during a visit to Beijing, as per Hydrocarbonprocesing.

H.E. Dr. Al Jaber was in the Chinese capital as part of the effort to expand and deepen business and economic relations with one of the UAE’s largest trading partners.

“Energy cooperation is an important aspect of the UAE’s relations with China, which is the number one oil importer globally and a major growth market for ADNOC’s crude, refined products and petrochemicals. We are keen to expand and deepen that relationship and believe there are mutually beneficial partnership and co-investment opportunities across our Upstream and Downstream value chains. ADNOC is also ready to work with its existing and potential new partners to meet the growing demand for energy and petrochemical products in China," H.E. Dr. Al Jaber said.

At the meetings, H.E. Dr. Al Jaber discussed ADNOC’s plans to develop new Upstream oil and gas resources and to expand ADNOC’s Downstream operations, which will see production of petrochemicals triple to 14.4 million tons per annum by 2025.

As announced earlier this year during ADNOC’s Downstream Investment Forum, the company is making significant investments in new Downstream projects, both domestically and internationally, to grow its refining capability and expand its petrochemical production three-fold to 14.4 mpta by 2025. Planned projects include a world-scale, mixed liquid feedstock Naphtha cracker, as well as investments in new refinery capacity. As a result of the planned expansions in its Downstream business, ADNOC will create one of the world’s largest integrated refining and petrochemical complexes at Ruwais, located in Abu Dhabi’s Al Dhafra region.

H.E. Dr. Al Jaber added, "We are keen to partner with value-add strategic partners who can contribute technology, know-how and market access. We believe there is enormous potential to expand our relationship with Chinese companies, especially in the Downstream, as we continue our transformation journey, grow our portfolio of products and maximize value."

The agenda also touched on ADNOC’s new licensing strategy announced earlier this year, which will see six offshore and onshore exploration, development and production blocks made available for competitive bidding.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Valero Energy Corp shut production on the small crude distillation unit (CDU) at its 180,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Memphis, Tennessee, refinery for repairs, sources familiar with plant operations said, as per Reuters.

A Valero spokeswoman did not reply to a request for comment.

Valero plans to keep the 80,000 bpd CDU shut until July 25 for unplanned repairs to clean out fouling from crude oil, the sources said.

As MRC informed previously, an explosion set off a huge fire at Valero Energy Corp’s 225,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Texas City, Texas, refinery on Thursday afternoon, 19 April 2018, but the fire was quickly contained, according the City of Texas City Emergency Management office. Sources familiar with plant operations said the explosion at about 5 p.m. (6 p.m. EDT/2200 GMT) was on a 12,000-bpd alkylation unit.
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MOSCOW (MRC) - Two contractors who were burned last week in a fire at Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Convent, Louisiana, refinery have been released from the hospital, sources familiar with plant operations said, as per Reuters.

The two contractors, who the sources said were released from the hospital on Friday, were among four workers injured in a flash fire on a hydrogen-like while working on a tail gas treatment unit last Wednesday.

Tail gas treatment units use hydrogen to remove sulfur from motor fuels and their feedstocks. The other two workers injured in the fire were able to return to work the same day.

The 209,787 barrel-per-day Convent refinery is performing a two-month overhaul of the gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit and other units, the sources said.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Production of unmixed polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in Russia increased to 484,600 tonnes in the first six months of this year, up 4% compared to the same period of 2017. Not all producers increased production volumes over the reported period, according to MRC ScanPlast.

June output of unmixed PVC exceeded 83,900 tonnes against 78,500 tonnes a month earlier, the low indicator of May was a result of a scheduled maintenance works at RusVinyl. Overall PVC production reached 484,600 tonnes in January-June 2018, compared to 467,700 tonnes a year earlier. All plants raised their output, except for RusVinyl.

The structure of PVC production by plants looked the following way over the stated period.

RusVinyl (JV of SIBUR and SolVin) produced about 28,800 tonnes of PVC in June, with emulsion polyvinyl chloride (EPVC) accounting for 2,400 tonnes, compared to 21,500 tonnes a month earlier. The Nizhny Novgorod producer shut down its production for a scheduled turnaround in the third decade of April. The maintenance was finished in early May. RusVinyl's overall production of resin reached 155,800 tonnes in the first six months of 2018, which is practically the same as in Q1 2017.

SayanskKhimPlast increased capacity utilisation last month, the plant's SPVC production reached 27,000 tonnes, whereas this figure was 26,600 tonnes in May. The Sayansk plant managed to produce 149,800 tonnes of resin in the first six months of the year, compared to 136,300 tonnes a year earlier.

Baskhir Soda Company produced about 21,300 tonnes of SPVC in June, against 22,300 tonnes a month earlier. The Bashkir plant's overall production of PVC exceeded 1323,600 tonnes in January-June 2018, up by 2% year on year.

Kaustik (Volgograd) in June decreased SPVC production, reaching about 6,900 tonnes, compared with 8,100 tonnes in May. The plant's overall production of resin exceeded 46,400 tonnes over the stated period versus 45,700 tonnes a year earlier.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF is investigating the possibility of building a highly-integrated “Verbund” chemical production site in the South Chinese province of Guangdong, said the company.

Today, Martin Brudermuller, BASF’s Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, and Lin Shaochun, Executive Vice Governor of Guangdong Province, signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding in Berlin, in the presence of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

The Verbund site in Guangdong would be BASF’s largest investment and would be operated under the sole responsibility of BASF. China – with a world market share of around 40% – is the largest chemical market, and dominates the growth of the global chemical production. The investment is estimated to reach up to USD10 billion by completion of the project around 2030. The first plants could be completed by 2026 at the latest.

In the initial phase, the BASF project would include petrochemical plants – the heart of the well-established Verbund system. A steam cracker with a planned capacity of 1 million metric tons of ethylene per year would be the starting point of the value chains at the new integrated site. In the next phases, plants for more consumer-oriented products and solutions would be built, to serve sectors like transportation or consumer goods. The site would ultimately be the third-largest BASF site worldwide, following Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Antwerp, Belgium.

Guangdong province is home to customers from these key industries, as well as other fast-growing industries. With more than 110 million residents, Guangdong is the most populous province in China. Its gross domestic product, currently growing at 7% annually, already exceeds that of Spain and will soon have reached that of South Korea.

At the new site, BASF intends to implement a comprehensive smart manufacturing concept based on cutting-edge technologies. In the future, customers based in South China would be supplied from this high-tech Verbund site.

Globally, BASF currently operates six Verbund sites: two in Europe (Ludwigshafen, Germany; Antwerp, Belgium), two in North America (Freeport, Texas, USA; Geismar, Louisiana, USA) and two in Asia. The Verbund site in Nanjing, China, established in 2000, is a 50:50 joint venture with Sinopec, while the Verbund site in Kuantan, Malaysia, established in 1997, is a 60:40 joint venture with Petronas.
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