Borouge begins construction of 5th UAE polypropylene unit

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Borouge, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Austria’s Borealis, has started construction of a fifth polypropylene (PP) unit in the United Arab Emirates, reported Reuters with reference to the company.

The new unit at the Borouge 3 plant will have a capacity of 480,000 tonnes a year and boost Borouge’s production capacity by more than 255 percent, it said.

It is expected to go online in the third quarter of 2021, the company said.

As MRC informed previously, in H1 September 2018, Borouge PP Plant EPCBorouge signed the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract with Maire Tecnimont Group for building its fifth PP plant with a capacity of 480,000 t/y in Ruwais to increase production capacity of PP by 25% to 2.24 million tonnes t/y. This opens up new opportunities to integrate with the local industries. The new PP5 plant will be added to the existing Borouge 3 plants in Ruwais scheduled to be commissioned in Q3 2021.

Borealis is a leading provider of innovative solutions in the fields of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers. With headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Borealis currently employs around 6,500 and operates in over 120 countries.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Alfa Laval – a world leader in heat transfer, centrifugal separation and fluid handling – has signed an umbrella agreement with the LU-VE Group to sell parts of its air heat exchanger business, related to commercial/industrial air heat exchangers, currently placed in the Greenhouse division. The closing of the agreement is expected during first half of 2019, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The product group commercial/industrial air heat exchangers represent the major part of today’s Greenhouse. It was moved there in 2016, along with a few other selected product groups, to give it the best possible conditions to improve its performance. The strategy has proven to be successful and the air heat exchanger business reported revenues of more than SEK 1 billion during the last twelve months.

"This business has made big improvements in the last two years both in terms of growth and profitability,” says Tom Erixon, President and CEO of the Alfa Laval Group. “However, we concluded it would have even better opportunities to continue developing under the ownership of the LU-VE Group."

The President of LU-VE, Iginio Liberali, says: “Alfa Laval’s commercial/industrial air heat exchangers will fit perfectly into the strategic design of growth and qualification of the LU-VE Group. With the acquisition, the Group will be among the three largest global operators in the sector. It will reinforce our capability to offer services and components of high quality and reliability."

The agreement to divest the commercial/industrial air heat exchanger business to LU?VE Group will affect about 400 employees, mainly based at the production sites in Italy, Finland and India, and the purpose is to transfer the employees to the LU-VE Group as per closing date of the transaction.

Alfa Laval will continue to supply air heat exchangers (such as Alfa Laval ACE, Alfa Laval Niagara and Alfa Laval OLMI) for heavy process industry applications and other types of heat exchangers (such as brazed heat exchangers) for the HVAC and refrigeration industry.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Japan's naphtha imports for the petrochemical sector rose 1 percent in November from the same month a year earlier, reported Reuters with reference to government figures.

Imports of naphtha for ethylene production totaled 1.24 million tonnes last month, up from 1.22 million tonnes in the same month a year earlier, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.

As MRC informed before, Tosoh Logistics Corp., a subsidiary of Tosoh Group, will construct a new specialized chemical logistics warehouse in Shunan City, Yamaguchi Prefecture (harbor district), Japan. The facility, tentatively named Rinkai Logistics Center No. 2, will feature freezing, cooling and heating capabilities. It will be the "largest" integrated logistics warehouse for chemical products in western Japan, and the company's third large-scale logistics warehouse in the Shunan area, Tosoh noted. Construction will start in January 2019 and completion is scheduled for December 2019. Operations are expected to begin in January 2020.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- McDermott International, Inc. announced that it has been awarded two sizeable* technology contracts by Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) for the license and basic engineering design of a 200 KTA polypropylene plant in Barauni, India, as well as a 420 KTA polypropylene plant in Gujarat, India, said the company.

Indian Oil Corporation is the leading refiner and a major petrochemical player in India. Both plants will use Lummus' proprietary NOVOLEN® process reactors and proprietary NHP® catalyst to produce a wide range of leading polypropylene products for the Indian and regional markets.

"Lummus' Novolen Technology offers the most competitive technology for the manufacturing of polypropylene, and continues to provide innovations in process and products," said Daniel M. McCarthy, Executive Vice President of McDermott's Lummus Technology business. "By licensing this technology to enhance the profitability of both the Barauni Refinery and the Gujarat Refinery, IOCL will be able to produce a variety of polypropylene products to meet India's increasing demand for plastics."

McDermott's Lummus Technology is a leading licensor of proprietary petrochemicals, refining, gasification and gas processing technologies, and a supplier of proprietary catalysts and related engineering. With a heritage spanning more than 100 years, encompassing approximately 3,100 patents and patent applications, Lummus Technology provides one of the industry's most diversified technology portfolios to the hydrocarbon processing sector.

These awards were reflected in McDermott's third quarter 2018 backlog.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lyondell Basell Industries (LBI) plans to restart the large coker at its 263,776 barrel-per-day (bpd) Houston refinery on Thursday or Friday, reported Reuters with reference to Gulf Coast market sources.

The 57,000 bpd coker was shut by a Nov. 28 fire that filled a heater with hard carbon deposits, the sources said. The heater has to be cleaned before the unit can restart. The coker was shut for a four-week overhaul in October and November.

As MRC wrote previously, in August 2016, LyondellBasell made the final investment decision to build a high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant on the US Gulf Coast. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1.1 billion pounds (500,000 metric tons) and will be the first commercial plant to employ LyondellBasell's new proprietary Hyperzone PE technology. The start-up of the new plant is scheduled for 2019.

LyondellBasell is one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world. Driven by its 13,000 employees around the globe, LyondellBasell produces materials and products that are key to advancing solutions to modern challenges like enhancing food safety through lightweight and flexible packaging, protecting the purity of water supplies through stronger and more versatile pipes, and improving the safety, comfort and fuel efficiency of many of the cars and trucks on the road. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
MRC