Honeywell acquires gas processing technology developer

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell has acquired Ortloff Engineers Ltd, a privately held licensor and industry-leading developer of specialized technologies that drive high returns in natural gas processing and sulfur recovery, as per Worldofchemicals.

Ortloff will become part of Honeywell UOP's gas processing and hydrogen business, bringing the industry's most advanced expertise in the recovery of high-value natural gas liquids (NGLs) from natural gas streams. Ortloff technologies are specialized to maximize gas separation, providing customers with high operational flexibility and greater returns on their plant investments. Ortloff also specializes in unique technologies for removing sulfur from refinery feedstocks, ensuring greater plant reliability and operability over the refinery lifecycle.

Honeywell UOP has worked closely with Ortloff since 2002, proving the effectiveness of these technologies with its customer set and establishing a long record of commercial success. This has helped gas processors secure financing for new projects and win long-term supply contracts with customers.

Based in Midland, Texas, Ortloff was founded in 1962 and is recognized worldwide as a leader in cryogenic gas liquids recovery, LNG processing, sulfur recovery and sour gas processing plant design. Ortloff has patented processes for NGL recovery including supplemental rectification with reflux (SRX), recycle split vapor (RSV), and single column overhead recycle (SCORE) technologies with extremely high recoveries and efficiencies, including more than 99 percent of ethane and nearly 100 percent of propane.

"For decades, Ortloff technology has defined the forefront of gas processing technology. That enables our customers to realize very high returns from their investments in natural gas separation. This differentiated, highly advanced technology, allows our customers to meet stringent process guarantees, while their operations perform at a best-in-class level. Ortloff also has unmatched expertise in sulfur recovery that tie in extremely well with our gas and refining portfolios," said John Gugel, president of Honeywell UOP.

"Ortloff complements our existing offerings perfectly, enabling Honeywell UOP to better meet customer needs for high-recovery NGL extraction plants globally Our joint technology offerings are installed in more than 50 gas plants around the world, allowing our customers to capture the greatest value from their natural gas resources," said Rachelle Goebel, vice president and general manager of Honeywell UOP's gas processing and hydrogen business.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF SE plans to increase the production capacity of 1,6-Hexanediol (HDO) at its Ludwigshafen Verbund site by more than 50 percent, as per Worldofchemicals.

After the start-up in 2021, BASF’s global annual nameplate capacity of HDO will be more than 70,000 metric tons per year at its production facilities in Ludwigshafen, Germany and Freeport, Texas, US.

HDO adds value in many applications by giving hydrolysis resistance, flexibility, adhesion and weatherability to the end-products. Due to its superior performance compared to other materials, BASF’s customers use the intermediate to formulate high quality industrial, automotive, wood or leather coatings, polyurethane plastics, adhesives and cosmetics.

HDO also serves as a raw material for environmentally-friendly applications including low volatile organic compound formulations for coatings and adhesives. In addition, there is the production of reactive thinners in the formulation of epoxy systems which are used for the efficient production of rotor blades for modern wind turbines and many other applications.

"By increasing our HDO production capacity, we will continue to support the fast-growing customer demand for high-quality HDO formulations globally. The expansion is in line with the general trend for high performance and environmentally friendly technologies in the automotive, furniture and packaging industry. As one of the leading global producers of HDO with decades of experience, we have highly efficient manufacturing processes and are supplying HDO to our customers across all regions," said Dr Andrea Frenzel, president, BASF intermediates division.

"With the investment we provide our customers more flexibility and reliability of supply than we did before. The volumes from the additional capacity in Ludwigshafen will mainly serve the strong European customer base as well as the fast-growing Asian market,” added Michael Britt, Senior vice president, BASF intermediates Europe.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hexpol TPE has optimised the extrusion equipment and production capacities at its site in Lichtenfels, Germany, with the installation of a filtration system from Trendelkamp Technologie GmbH, as per GV.

In addition, all extrusion lines were equipped with granulate classifiers from Trendelkamp.

According to Dominik Fehn, Production Manager Hexpol TPE GmbH, the family owned company from Nordwalde, Germany, was selected due to customisation options of the screen changer as well as excellent communication and quick response times. The filtration systems are characterised by heat insulation and rectangular breaker plates that save energy and also reduce pressure loss over the screen changer, as stated by Trendelkamp.

As MRC reported earlier, in 2013, the Hexpol TPE group, a manufacturer of custom-formulated TPE and flexible polymer compounds, appointed MLPlastics as its distribution partner in the North of Germany.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Saudi Aramco plans to deliver the first crude oil cargo to its joint-refinery project with Petronas in Malaysia in October as the companies prepare for trial runs at the new plant, several sources with knowledge of the matter said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The project, Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID), is a $27 billion complex located between the Malacca Strait and the South China Sea, conduits for Middle East oil and gas bound for China, Japan and South Korea.

RAPID is one of four new refineries in Asia, with a combined crude processing capacity of nearly 1.3 million barrels per day, scheduled to start up from late 2018 to 2019. These plants will increase Asia’s crude demand while adding to fuel output in the region, traders and analysts said.

"Together with the other mega-refineries poised to start up around the same time, there is potentially a brief window for margins to be awful before IMO effects kick in in the second half of 2019," said Nevyn Nah, a Singapore-based analyst at Energy Aspects.

Nevertheless, RAPID is expected to put Malaysia in a competitive position, not only for its own targets for switching to producing Euro V fuel, but also ahead of the IMO 2020 ruling by increasing its net length in diesel, he said.

International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules will cap ships’ sulphur emissions at 0.5 percent of fuel content in 2020, from 3.5 percent now. Shippers have several ways to comply – including investing in costly “scrubbers” to allow them to keep burning high-sulphur fuel oil, or shifting the roughly 4 million bpd of fuel they burn to more expensive low-sulphur gasoil.

RAPID will contain a 300,000-bpd refinery and a petrochemical complex with a capacity of 7.7 million tonnes a year. Refinery operations are set to begin in 2019, with petrochemical operations to follow six to 12 months afterwards.

Saudi Aramco will supply 50 percent of the refinery’s crude oil with an option of increasing it to 70 percent. While the first crude for RAPID has been scheduled for delivery in October, the timeline for trial runs at the new plant has not been firmed up, some of the sources said.

Saudi Arabia has increased its oil production to above 10 million bpd since June to meet rising global demand. It is also in talks with new Chinese refiners Dalian Hengli Petrochemical and Zhejiang Rongsheng Petrochemical to supply long-term crude.

Aramco and Malaysia’s Petronas approached banks earlier this year to refinance an USD8 billion loan for the project. Saudi Aramco and Petronas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF has appointed Ketan Joshi to lead its Petrochemicals business unit in Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong, effective September 1, 2018, said the producer on its site.

Joshi started his career with BASF in 2006 in the R&D department. He then held various management positions in Corporate Strategy, as well as in Product Management and Global Strategy for the Intermediates Division. He was most recently Head of Strategic Marketing and Projects, Intermediates Asia Pacific. As Vice President, Petrochemicals Asia Pacific, he will focus on expanding the business and supporting BASF’s customers and partners in the region.

As MRC informed before, in December 2017, BASF’s Coatings division inaugurated a new automotive coatings plant at its Bangpoo manufacturing site, Samutprakarn province, Thailand. The new plant is the first BASF automotive coatings manufacturing facility in ASEAN, and will produce solventborne and waterborne automotive coatings to meet growing market demand in the region.

BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries. BASF generated sales of EUR64.5 billion in 2017.
MRC