Saipem servers suffer cyber attack in Middle East

MOSCOW (MRC) - Italian oil services company Saipem said it had identified a cyber attack out of India that had primarily affected its servers in the Middle East, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

"We are collecting all the elements useful for assessing the impact on our infrastructures and the actions to be taken to restore normal activities," the firm said in a statement.

Saipem’s head of digital and innovation, Mauro Piasere, told Reuters the attack had originated in Chennai, India. Servers in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait had been attacked as too, partially, had infrastructure in Aberdeen in Scotland, he said.

But he added the group’s servers in its main operating centers in Italy, France and Britain had not been affected.

"The servers involved have been shut down for the time being to assess the scale of the attack," he said, adding that data back-up systems would be activated once the threat was eliminated.

"There has been no loss of data because all our systems have back-ups," he said. Its biggest client is Saudi Aramco with whom it has a framework agreement to 2021.

Saipem said it was notifying the report of the incident to the competent authorities.
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Russian Antipinsky refinery halts crude processing

MOSCOW (MRC) -- New Stream, the owner of Russian private oil refinery Antipinsky, said oil flows to the plant would resume shortly and the company was processing payments for supplies with Sberbank, reported Reuters.

Sources told Reuters the oil refinery halted processing on Dec. 5 due to lack of crude supplies.

"Neither primary, nor secondary units are working, the plant is completely stopped," one of the sources said.

We remind that, as MRC informed before, Russia's NOVATEK Group has selected Topsoe hydrogen technology for their first refinery. The hydrogen plant is slated to begin operation in the second quarter of 2020, and basic engineering has already begun.
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BCPL restart of PP and PE plants

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brahmaputra Crackers and Polymers Ltd (BCPL) has brought on-stream its PE and PP plants, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in India informed that the company has resumed operations at the plants on December 10, 2018 following an unplanned outage. The plants were shut in early-November, 2018 owing to technical issues and was supposed to remain off-line for around 15-20 days.

Located at Lepetkata, near Dibrugarh in Assam, the petrochemical complex have an PE production capacity of 220,000 mt/year and PP production capacity of 60,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote previously, the Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited (BCPL), also known as the Assam gas cracker project, was commissioned in 2015.

BCPL is a joint venture owned 70% by GAIL and 10% each by OIL, NRL and the Assam government.
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McDermott awarded contract by Bayport Polymers for new PE plant in South Texas

MOSCOW (MRC) -- McDermott International, Inc. has announced a contract award from Bayport Polymers LLC, a joint venture of Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA, Inc., and Novealis Holdings LLC (a joint venture of Borealis AG and NOVA Chemicals Inc.), for its new High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plant, the Borstar Bay3 Project, in Bayport, Texas, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

McDermott's scope of work on the Borstar Bay3 Project includes the engineering, procurement, fabrication, and construction (EPFC) of a 625,000 tons/year HDPE plant. Project execution will be led out of McDermott's Houston offices. The Project will be based on a modular approach that will utilize the Company's world-class facility in Altamira, Mexico, to efficiently fabricate and assemble process and pipe rack modules. The construction phase will leverage the strength of McDermott's Gulf Coast direct hire construction capabilities and will include the use of specialty sub-contracts.

"This award continues our strong and sustainable relationship with the Total, Borealis, NOVA Chemicals JV team following the award in March of 2017 for their ethane cracker in Port Arthur," said Richard Heo, Senior Vice President for North, Central and South America. "The Borstar Bay3 Project is an example of how our vertically integrated, 'One McDermott Way' operating model delivers value to our customers while reducing cost and risk on projects of this scale."

Mechanical completion and construction of the facility are expected to be complete in 2021. The new plant will also be ready for hydrocarbon introduction in 2021.

As MRC reported earllier, in October 2018, McDermott International, Inc. was awarded a significant contract by LUKOIL NizhegorodNefteorgSyntez, a subsidiary of JSC LUKOIL, for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the Delayed Coker Unit for the Deep Conversion Complex planned to be built in Kstovo, Russia.
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Mongstad oil refinery evacuates 300 workers after gas leak

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Equinor’s Mongstad oil refinery on Norway’s west coast evacuated 300 workers and halted part of its gasoline production following a leak, reported Reuters with reference to the company's statement.

The spill of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) led to an emergency shutdown of the refinery’s naphtha-making unit, however there were no injuries, Equinor spokeswoman Elin Isaksen said.

"Part of the gasoline production has stopped as a consequence, not all," she said.

The company declined to specify how much of its output had been stopped and how much of the facility’s operations were still working.

Local police and the fire service confirmed earlier that the leak had been stopped.

As MRC wrote before, in July 2018, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. was awarded a feasibility study contract from Equinor Energy AS to evaluate the possibilities for building a hydrogen production plant, including CO2 capture and export facilities, in Eemshaven, the Netherlands.
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