Daesan cracker to be shut by Hanwha Total

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hanwha Total Petrochemical is in plans to shut its Deasan cracker for maintenance and debottlenecking exercise, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that the company is expected to start maintenance along with the capacity expansion at the cracker in end-March, 2019. The cracker is expected to complete turnaround and expansion process in 40-45 days.

Following the expansion, the ethylene capacity will be increased by 310,000 MT and propylene capacity will be increased by 120,000 MT.

Located at Daesan in South Korea, currently the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 1.09 million mt/year and propylene capacity of 640,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, Hanwha Total Petrochemical is investing approximately USD500m to further expand its Daesan integrated refining and petrochemical complex in South Korea. The company operates as a 50/50 joint venture (JV) between Total and Hanwha. The planned investment is expected to increase annual polypropylene capacity by almost 60% to 1.1 million tonnes and ethylene capacity by 10% to 1.5 million tonnes by the end of 2020.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Karpatneftekhim (Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk region), Ukraine's largest petrochemical plant,
stopped the production of high density polyethylene (HDPE) due to a fire on the olefin complex. The polyvinyl chloride (PVC) production continues, according to ICIS-MRC Price Report.

The company's customers said the Ukrainian producer, after a fire in the ethylene production pipeline, was forced to almost immediately suspend the production of HDPE. While the production of PVC continues, but with reduced capacity utilisation. The exact dates of the outage have not been announced yet.

Further operation mode of Karpatneftekhim will be determined not earlier than next week, when the audit of the effects of the fire on the equipment will be completed. As previously reported, a fire broke out on the evening of 12 January.

Pyrogaz was burning in the open area of the plant; a 15-meter column of flame was visible above the plant. Fire at the Karpatneftekhim plant was localized on 12 Januarfy at 23.48.

Karpatneftekhim is one of the largest enterprises of Ukraine's petrochemical complex. Currently, the plant can produce annually 300,000 tonnes of PVC, 200,000 tonnes of caustic soda, about 180,000 tonnes of chlorine, as well as 250,000 tonnes of ethylene and 100,000 tonnes of polyethylene.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno asked the country’s prosecutor to probe USD4.9 billion (3.9 billion pounds) of oil-related infrastructure projects, alleging that the OPEC nation’s money was looted during the decade-long tenure of his leftist predecessor, said Reuters.

Moreno said there were massive cost overruns, operational failings and non-transparent bidding processes at the five projects built during Rafael Correa’s presidency, including a USD2.2 billion upgrade to the Esmeraldas refinery."Nearly $5 billion of Ecuadoreans’ money, when it should have cost half that,” Moreno said in a national broadcast. “This theft of public funds cannot go unpunished."

Moreno took office in May 2017 after earning Correa’s endorsement during the campaign, but the two later fell out over Moreno’s market-friendly policies.

Last year, Moreno asked a United Nations unit to conduct a technical and economic review of the five projects undertaken by the previous administration.

Correa has denied allegations of corruption in his administration, calling them a political smear campaign. He lives in Belgium and has not returned to Ecuador since a judge last year ordered that he be jailed as part of a case involving the kidnapping of a lawmaker, in which he denies involvement.

The other projects Moreno mentioned included a natural gas liquefaction plant, a seaport, a fuel distribution centre, a pipeline and a partly-built refinery that has run out of financing after receiving some USD1.5 billion in investment.
mrcplast.com

MOSCOW (MRC) -Italy’s 200,000 barrel per day Milazzo oil refinery shut one of its two crude distillation units as bad weather prevented oil tankers from reaching the port, a spokesman for the refinery said, as per Reuters.

“There are no technical problems,” the spokesman said, adding the unit could be restarted on Friday if the weather improves.

The refinery is operated through a joint venture between Eni and Kuwait Petroleum Italy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) – Alpek, S.A.B. de C.V. announced that Corpus Christi Polymers LLC, has successfully completed the previously announced acquisition of the Corpus Christi Project from M&G USA Corp. and its affiliated debtors (“M&G”) for an aggregate amount of U.S. D1.199 billion in cash and other capital contributions, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The Corpus Christi Project assets include the integrated PTA-PET plant under construction in Corpus Christi, Texas, certain M&G intellectual property, and a desalination/boiler plant providing water and steam to the site.

When completed, the Corpus Christi plant is expected to have a nominal capacity of 1.1 million and 1.3 million metric tons per year of PET and PTA, respectively.

Following the acquisition of the Corpus Christi Project, and pursuant to the terms of CC Polymers (JV):

• Alpek, Indorama, and Far Eastern will provide resources to CC Polymers to complete the project in the most efficient and cost effective way. A timeline and estimated investment for the project’s completion will be provided at a later stage.

• Alpek, Indorama and Far Eastern will each have the right to receive one third of the capacity of PTA and PET produced at the Corpus Christi Project upon completion. Also, each party will independently procure its raw materials and will independently sell and distribute their corresponding PTA and PET, among other rights and obligations.

Alpek made total contributions of U.S. D266 million in cash and U.S. D133 million non-cash for the closing of the transaction. Alpek’s non-cash contribution is associated to a portion of its secured claim with M&G, arising under the Corpus Christi Capacity Reservation Agreement (“2L Claim”). Alpek will also obtain U.S.D67 million in cash for the remainder of its 2L Claim, subject to certain conditions.
MRC