Rain Carbon receives petroleum coke import exemption from Supreme Court of India

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rain Carbon Inc., a leading global producer of carbon-based products, today announced that the company will resume shipments of petroleum coke to its Vizag calcining facility in Visakhapatnam, India, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This follows an October 9 ruling by the Supreme Court of India that exempts calciners from the nation's recent ban on the importation of petroleum coke for use as fuel, which was enacted as part of the country's effort to reduce industrial emissions.

Rain Carbon uses green petroleum coke (GPC) as its primary feedstock in the production of calcined petroleum coke (CPC), which is an essential raw material in the anodes required during the electrolytic process of aluminum production. The company also imports CPC for blending at its Vizag facility. Under the Supreme Court's ruling, India's calcining industry will be permitted to import up to 1.4 million metric tons of GPC annually; the ruling also permits India's aluminum industry to use up to 500,000 tons of imported CPC per year.

"We thank the honorable Supreme Court of India for its expeditious and positive ruling on our petition, which will enable our Vizag facility to continue to support India's growing aluminum industry, which relies on our CPC in their production processes," said Rain Carbon President Gerry Sweeney. "As an industry leader in environmental best practices, Rain Carbon understands and supports India's desire to reduce emissions and industrial pollution."

The industrial processes at Rain Carbon's calcining facilities in India and the United States "are designed to reduce emissions," Sweeney explained. "At our Vizag plant, for example, our scrubbers remove in excess of 98% of the sulfur dioxide before exhaust gases are released into the atmosphere. In addition, our co-generation facility at the plant transforms waste heat from our calcining process into clean electricity that is sold to industrial customers over the local power grid, displacing an equivalent amount of fossil fuel-fired electricity."

Sweeney said the two-and-a-half month import ban will have a negative impact on the third- and fourth-quarter financial performance of Rain Carbon and its parent company, Rain Industries Ltd.
MRC

US crude stocks rise as refining slows, gasoline builds unexpectedly

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US crude oil stockpiles rose last week for the third consecutive weekly build as refineries continued to reduce output for seasonal maintenance, while gasoline inventories grew unexpectedly, reported Reuters with reference to the Energy Information Administration.

Crude inventories rose 6 million barrels in the week to Oct. 5, compared with analysts’ expectations for an increase of 2.6 million barrels. The build was in part due to a 2.4 million-barrel increase in stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub for U.S. crude futures.

Net US crude imports fell last week by 1.4 million barrels per day to 4.8 million bpd, the lowest rate since at least 2001 when the EIA began tracking the data. Weekly figures like this are volatile, however.

The stock build fed recent selling in the oil market, which has also been happening in tandem with a broader sell-off across global equity and bond markets. U.S. crude futures dropped 2.5 percent to USD71.26 a barrel, while Brent crude was off 2.7 percent to USD80.88 a barrel.

Refinery crude runs fell by 352,000 barrels per day, EIA data showed.

Refinery utilization rates fell by 1.6 percentage points to 88.8 percent of nationwide capacity, led by a slowing in activity in the Midwest, where utilization fell to 73.3 percent of capacity, the lowest since EIA started tracking that data by region in 2010.

"The steep decline in refinery run rates helped to produce the inventory gain," said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital Management in New York.

Several major refineries in the Midwest, including BP Plc’s facilities in Whiting, Indiana, and HollyFrontier Corp’s plant in El Dorado, Kansas, are currently undergoing maintenance.

Gasoline stocks rose by 1 million barrels, compared with expectations in a Reuters poll for a fall of 42,000 barrels.

Gasoline futures were down 3.2 percent to USD1.9557 a gallon, in part due to an increase in East Coast stocks, which have risen to 70.6 million barrels, compared with 58.2 million barrels at this time a year ago.

"Gasoline is leading the market down as continued high levels of imports into the East Coast have led to inventory levels that are 20 percent higher than this time last year," said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 2.7 million barrels, versus expectations for a 2 million-barrel drop, the EIA data showed.
MRC

Covestro signs MoU with the Institute of Chemical Technology

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Covestro and the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), a chemical technology research university in Mumbai, India, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at finding innovative solutions that can act as an enabler and provide a significant contribution to achieve sustainable goals, as per GV.

According to the agreement, the research would span from warming and insulation for open poultry sheds, modification in the manufacturing process to produce flame retardant polyurethane and PU-PCM for cold storage.

The aim of this MoU is to build scientific and technical knowledge through joint research and to implement the research findings in industry wide application. It will facilitate the development of polymer-based PCM material that can replace non-efficient and high energy consuming elements. The MOU was exchanged by Ajay Durrani, MD, Covestro India, along with Dr. Thomas Toepfer, CFO, Covestro AG and Prof. G. D. Yadav, Vice Chancellor, ICT.

Ajay Durrani, MD, Covestro India, said: "We are confident that through this partnership we are able to conduct ground breaking research that will enable us in finding sustainable solutions through large-scale application of talented materials. We truly believe that these research based applications will help us to provide solutions to India’s food safety concerns and help in making smarter and safer transportation leading to the economic and social development of the country."

Dr. Thomas Toepfer, CFO, Covestro AG, said: "True to our commitment, we will aim 80 % of our R&D project spending to address SDG challenges by 2025. At the same time, we will further increase our investments which will benefit India along with some other nations and at the same time create value. We are looking forward to leverage such opportunities in India and APAC region which will help make world a brighter place."

Prof. G. D. Yadav, Vice Chancellor, ICT, said: "We are delighted to partner with Covestro for the research projects that will provide students with an opportunity to develop practical solutions to India’s food security and national safety problems."

India has about 6,300 cold storage facilities with a capacity of 30.11 million t, which are only able to store about 11 % of the country’s total perishable produce. This creates an enormous gap between agriculture production and its storage. India wastes 40 % of all harvested agricultural produce. These cold storage and poultry use electricity and diesel to maintain the temperature which leads to overuse of energy and fossil fuel and has detrimental effects on the environment. Materials that can be used in cold storages and poultries to maintain the required temperature and help reduce the carbon footprint can make a massive difference.

As MRC wrote earlier, in July 2018, Siemens AG and Covestro Deutschland AG concluded a Joint Business Development Plan to provide further strategic reinforcement of their trust-based partnership for many years, particularly in the field of digitalization. This is based on the corporate ethos of the two companies which is both innovative and geared towards sustainability. The agreement, therefore, helps make life simpler and safer through continuous improvement and future-oriented products.

Covestro (formerly Bayer MaterialScience) is an independent subgroup within Bayer. It was created as part of the restructuring of Bayer AG from the former business group Bayer Polymers, with certain of its activities being spun off to Lanxess AG. Covestro manufactures and develops materials such as coatings, adhesives and sealants, polycarbonates (CDs, DVDs), polyurethanes (automotive seating, insulation for refrigerating appliances) etc.
MRC

Poliom resumed PP production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Poliom, based in Omsk, a joint venture of Titan Group, SIBUR and Gazprom neft, has resumed its production after a scheduled maintenance, as per ICIS-MRC Price report.

The plant's representative said Poliom resumed its polypropylene (PP) production on Thursday, 11 October, after the turnaround. The outage was short in comparison with other Russian producers and lasted for 10 days (the shutdown began on 1 October). The plant's annual production capacity is 210,000 tonnes.

The launch of Poliom after the outage was the first one in the autumn round of turnarounds at a number of Russian plants. Thus, Ufaorgsintez shut down its production capacities for 30-day maintenance on 19 September, SIBUR Tobolsk started a three-week turnaround on 2 October, and Stavrolen took off-stream its PP production for one week on 6 October.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Poliom produced 19,400 tonnes of PP in August versus 18,700 tonnes a month earlier. The Omsk plant's overall PP output totalled about 148,000 tonnes in the first eight months of 2018, up 3% year on year.

Poliom Ltd., a JV of Gazprom Neft, SIBUR and Titan, which was established in 2005, is one of the three leaders of Russian PP producers. The plant, which started operation on 9 February, 2013, was built on Basell's technology, with Tecnimont being the supplier of technological equipment. It can produce 98 different grades of PP (homo-, stat-, block copolymers).
MRC

PVC imports into Kazakhstan decreased by 16% in January-August

MOSCOW (MRC) - Imports of unmixed polyvinyl chloride (PVC) into Kazakhstan decreased to about 32,300 tonnes in January-August 2018, down 16% compared with the same time a year earlier, according to MRC DataScope.

There was a significant decrease in demand for PVC in August from local companies. August imports of unmixed PVC amounted to 2,400 tonnes against 4,800 tonnes a month earlier.
Thus, overall imports of PVC to Kazakhstan totalled 32,300 tonnes in January-August 2018, compared to 38,300 tonnes a year earlier.

Due to the geographical position, the main suppliers of PVC to Kazakhstan remained Chinese producers, with the share of about 83% of the local market over the stated period.

But this year, deliveries from Russia increased significantly, Russian producers supplied more than 5,400 tonnes of PVC to the local market over eight months.
MRC