Wood wins contract with Equinor to support the Hammerfest LNG development options

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Wood hasrecently provided technical support for Equinor’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility at Melkoya Island, Norway, as part of a new contract secured under an existing master services agreement, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Hammerfest LNG is Europe’s largest LNG liquefaction plant and uses gas from the Snohvit development in the Barents Sea. The plant has the capacity to produce 4.3 million tonnes per annum of LNG.

As part of the scope of work, Wood’s process technology & consulting team carried out a study phase assessment of onshore compression, additional LNG processing capacity and electrification of the facility. The study looked at the use of modular applications in brownfield environments to ensure a balance between safety, layout, construction and process constraints.

Bob MacDonald, CEO of Wood's Specialist Technical Solutions business, said: "Wood has a longstanding working relationship with Equinor. We look forward to continuing this partnership by helping the team evaluate and realize opportunities for the continued operation of Hammerfest LNG at a plateau and into the foreseeable future through the potential investment of new facilities."

Geir A. Owren, project director at Equinor, said: "We are looking forward to working together with Wood as part of this study which aims to find effective solutions for the continued success of Hammerfest LNG."

As MRC wrote before, in October 2017, Wood was awarded a new multi-million dollar contract by Total, supporting their Lindsey Oil Refinery located in North Killinghome, Lincolnshire, UK. The 5-yr contract is to provide onshore maintenance services and includes the option to be extended up to 2 yr.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's refiners increased their output in July to close to 12 million barrels per day (bpd), but at the same time exports of refined fuels fell to the lowest in four months, as per Reuters.

These facts may seem contradictory, and while there are several issues than can help explain the dynamics, perhaps the most compelling is that China appears to be becoming more attuned to market forces for refined products in Asia.

As is often the case with China's intake and processing of crude oil and its exports of refined products, the data is incomplete, and in this case the main missing numbers are movements in inventories.

Inventory data was last released in April, so it's hard to know how much of the refinery throughput went into storage tanks, as opposed to being exported or consumed domestically.

But what is known is that refinery runs totaled 11.95 MMbpd in July, a gain of 11.6 percent from the same month in 2017.

In the first seven months of the year, China's refineries processed 12.07 MMbpd, an increase of 9.2 percent over the same period last year.

However, exports of gasoline fell to 890,000 tonnes in July, equivalent to about 244,000 bpd, down from 334,000 bpd in June and 403,000 bpd in May.

Diesel exports fell to 1.54 million tonnes, or about 372 Mbpd, down from 402 Mbpd in June and 484,000 bpd in May.

In addition to the unknown flows into inventories, gasoline and diesel exports may have been affected by Chinese refiners getting close to exhausting quotas and cutting back on shipments.

It is also possible that the smaller, independent refineries exported less because of reduced runs, as they battle higher crude oil prices and increased government scrutiny on taxes.

Chinese domestic consumption may also have risen, especially in the agricultural sector given the summer peak demand season.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Borealis’ sister company NOVA Chemicals today announced a three-year investment of nearly USD 2 million (EUR 1.5 million) to prevent plastic debris from reaching the ocean, as per the company's press release.

The investment supports Project STOP, a new global initiative to design and implement solutions to reduce marine plastic pollution especially in countries with high leakage of plastics into our oceans.

Southeast Asia has been identified as a major source of marine plastic debris as economic development and plastics consumption have outpaced the expansion of waste management systems in the region. Project STOP has chosen Indonesia as a primary focus region.

"We understand the growing concern about marine plastic pollution and agree we must take meaningful action to address this challenge. NOVA Chemicals’ investment demonstrates our commitment to shaping a world that is even better tomorrow than it is today,” said John Thayer, Senior Vice President, Polyethylene Business at NOVA Chemicals. “Plastics are too valuable to be thrown away or left as litter. We’re working with Project STOP to find high-impact solutions to prevent plastic pollution in critical locations around the world."

"Project STOP represents an important step towards creating a plastics circular economy. We are more than pleased that, after our joint venture with Borouge, our sister company NOVA Chemicals joins forces with us in this industry-leading initiative,” explained Alfred Stern, CEO of Borealis. “The collaboration of Borealis, Borouge and NOVA Chemicals highlights our commitment to proactively help solve the issue of ocean plastic."

NOVA Chemicals’ investment will support the first city partnership in Muncar, a coastal fishing community located in Banyuwangi, Indonesia. With minimal waste services in place, many citizens are forced to dump their waste directly into the environment. Muncar was chosen as the first STOP location due to the seriousness of the challenge, coupled with strong leadership and environmental commitment at national, regency and local levels.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical is likely to restart its No.3 polypropylene (PP) unit in Guangdong, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has planned to resume operations at its PP unit on September 1, 2018. The unit was shut for maintenance on August 24, 2018.

Located in Guangdong, China, the No. 3 PP unit has a capacity of 200,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, on 26 August, 2018, Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical restarted its No. 2 low density polyethylene (LDPE) unit in Guangdong, following a brief maintenance. The unit was shut on August 22, 2018. Located at Guangdong in China, the No. 2 unit has a production capacity of 280,000 mt/year.

Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical Company (Maoming Company) - a subsidiary of Sinopec- is located in Maoming, Guangdong and was founded in May 1955. The company now has a crude oil processing capacity of 13.5 million t/a and an ethylene production capacity of 1 million t/a. Maoming Company has turned out to be a large-scale integrated refining and chemical enterprise with refining as the leading business and petrochemical sector as the mainstay.

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) -- Borealis, a leading provider of innovative solutions in the fields of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers, announces that it has fully acquired the Austrian plastics recycler Ecoplast Kunststoffrecycling GmbH (“Ecoplast”), as per the company's press-release.

Based in Wildon, Austria, Ecoplast processes around 35,000 tonnes of post-consumer plastic waste from households and industrial consumers every year, turning them into high-quality LDPE and HDPE recyclates, primarily but not exclusively for the plastic film market.

The expectation of Borealis is that the recycled PO market will grow substantially by 2021, which is the strategic rationale behind the acquisition. The company has made PO recycling a key element of its overall PO strategy because of its potential to support both growth and sustainability. Borealis has been an industry frontrunner in making polyolefins more circular. In 2014, it began offering high-end compound solutions to the automotive industry, consisting of 25% and 50% post-consumer recycled content. Borealis was also the first virgin PO producer to explore the possibilities of mechanical recycling, by acquiring one of Europe's largest producers of post-consumer polyolefin recyclates - mtm plastics GmbH and mtm compact GmbH – in July 2016. Since then it has continued to invest into the development of technology and new products in the area of circular polyolefins.

"Borealis recognises the increasing need for plastic recycling and sees the Circular Economy as a business opportunity. Borealis already has a long-term collaboration with Ecoplast and this acquisition is the next logical step in building our mechanical recycling capabilities. As an important complement to mtm in Germany, Ecoplast will help us address critical sustainability challenges and become a polyolefin recycling leader. Eventually, we want to use our experience to develop an effective blueprint for the end-of-use phases for plastics that can be applied in other parts of the world," says Borealis Chief Executive Alfred Stern.

"We are very happy that the transaction with a strong and reliable partner such as Borealis has been successfully concluded and are looking forward to our common future activities on the recycling market. We have located potential synergies in many operative and strategic areas, especially in product quality R&D and future applications of polyethylene-film-recyclates. The combination of Ecoplast and Borealis holds the potential to be groundbreaking for the market," says Ecoplast’s Managing Director Lukas Intemann.
MRC