Stavrolen resumed PP production of PP after unscheduled outage

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Stavrolen, Russia's major polyolefins producer, had resumed its polypropylene (PP) production by the beginning of the week after an unscheduled shutdown, according to ICIS-MRC Price report with reference to the producer's customers.

The plant's customers said Stavrolen was forced to shut its PP production on 1 March due to technical issues. The plant had resumed PP output by 11 March.

Stavrolen's (part of Lukoil) annual capacity of PP and HDPE production is 120,000 and 300,000 tonnes, respectively. The plant's output of propylene polymers and HDPE exceeded 15,100 tonnes and 45,100 tonnes, respectively, in the first two months of 2019.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- India's Haldia Petrochemicals has received the approval to build an aromatics plant with 1.6 million mt/year of paraxylene capacity along with a 2.5 million mt/year purified terephthalic acid plant in the state of Odisha, as per Apic-online.

There are also plans to build a refinery at the same location, and the entire project is expected to be completed in about five years.Haldia Petrochemical is part of India's Chatterjee Group, which also owns India's Materials Chemicals and Performance Intermediaries Pte. Ltd., a producer of PTA.

The company has two PTA plants with a total capacity of 1.27 million mt/year at Haldia.

As MRC informed before, Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) resumed production at its cracker and downstream plants following a maintenance turnaround on 9-10 June, 2018. The complex was shut on May 10, 2018 for a period of about 20-25 days. Located at Haldia in the eastern Indian state of west Bengal, the complex can produce 700,000 mt/year of ethylene and 350,000 mt/year of propylene and provides feedstock to a 330,000 mt/year high density PE plant, a 370,000 mt/year HDPE/linear low PE swing plant and a 350,000 mt/year polypropylene unit.

Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd is a modern naphtha based petrochemical complex at Haldia, West Bengal, India. Haldia has played the role of a catalyst in emergence of more than 500 downstream processing industries in West Bengal with a capacity to process more than 3,50,000 TPA of polymers, among which are polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP)
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell has struck a deal with Dutch tank terminal firm HES International to partially restart a German oil refinery suspended since 2011 in response to new restrictions on marine fuels, sources told Reuters.

A new cap set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that will cut the sulfur content in shipping fuel to 0.5 percent from 3.5 percent from next year is set to be one of the biggest fundamental events to hit oil markets in years.

HES Wilhelmshaven Tank Terminal is in the process of reinstalling the vacuum distillation unit (VDU) at Wilhelmshaven to produce low-sulfur bunker fuels ahead of the implementation of the IMO rules, a spokeswoman for the company said.

HES said it had “reached a tolling agreement with a customer,” but declined to comment on the parties involved.

However, two trading sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters the customer in question is Shell. Shell declined to comment.

The agreement is akin to a processing deal, whereby Shell brings in the feedstock and handles the end product, one of the sources said.

HES bought the 260,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery from ConocoPhillips in 2011 and converted it into a large-scale tank terminal facility with capacity of 1.3 million cubic meters.

The plant’s refining capacity was shuttered at a time when several European refineries were finding it uncompetitive to remain operational, as newer, more complex mega-refineries emerged in other regions like the Middle East and Asia.

But as the new IMO rules dictate a massive shift in oil product slates from higher to low sulfur, the economics are shifting and oil companies and traders are resorting to creative ideas to meet the new demand.

The IMO sulfur restrictions will lead high-sulfur fuel oil demand to fall 60 percent to 1.4 MMbpd next year, while marine gasoil demand will more than double to 2 MMbpd, the International Energy Agency forecast this week.

Vacuum distillation is an integral part of the refining process. VDUs typically run on residual fuel produced from distilling crude to produce vacuum gasoil which is then used to feed upgrading units that make gasoline and diesel.

However, the Wilhelmshaven VDU will not be running on residual fuel, HES said.

One of the sources said the plan is to process heavy, low-sulfur crudes like Brazilian grades to produce a range of products, including maximum 0.5 percent sulfur fuel oil or distillate marine fuels.

HES is 70 percent owned by private investment firm Riverstone, with the remaining 30 percent held by the Carlyle Group.

Infrastructure funds managed by banks Macquarie and Goldman Sachs agreed in principle last year to buy the company.

As MRC wrote previously, in May 2018, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Shell Nanhai B.V. (Shell) announced the official start-up of the second ethylene cracker at their Nanhai petrochemicals complex in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. announced that it has opened the Design & Solution Center in Sanjo, Niigata Prefecture, said the company.

The center will serve as a new base that widely offers the Mitsui Chemicals Group’s development capabilities, ranging from design to analysis, molding, prototyping and evaluation. An opening ceremony for the new center was held on March 11.

With the Mitsui Chemicals Group possessing product development capabilities in design, analysis, molding, prototyping and evaluation, Mitsui Chemicals has established the Design & Solution Center in aim of bringing these capabilities together to exhibit synergies within the group and to speed up the creation process.

The base will be used to help Mitsui Chemicals in strengthening its growth sectors of Mobility, Health Care and Food & Packaging. The Mitsui Chemicals Group aims through these efforts to strengthen its offering of total solution while also creating new customer value through Innovations.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Axens has signed an agreement with ExxonMobil Catalysts and Licensing (ExxonMobil) to sublicense the latter’s sulfuric acid alkylation technology, said chemicals-technology.

Under the alliance agreement, both companies will market and distribute all technologies for high-octane gasoline production. The agreement aims to offer a streamlined solution to meet customer requirements.

The technologies to be accessible under the agreement include Axens feed preparation, or alkyfining, n-butane isomerisation and ExxonMobil’s sulfuric acid alkylation. Axens will offer the technologies under a single licence and engineering agreement.

"We are excited to expand our partnership to offer this optimised alkylation solution to the industry."
The new alliance follows the success of the recent ParamaX agreement to increase paraxylene production. Axens’ ParamaX suite consists of technologies originally developed by ExxonMobil Chemical Technology Licensing.

ExxonMobil president Dan Moore said: "Combining our owner-operator experience with Axens’ strong engineering expertise in providing advanced technologies, we are excited to expand our partnership to offer this optimised alkylation solution to the industry."

Axens chairman and CEO Jean Sentenac said: "We are excited by this agreement offering integration of advanced technologies to better meet refiners’ needs for the production of alkylate, a key component of high-octane gasoline."

According to ExxonMobil, its sulfuric acid alkylation technology ‘reacts propylene, butylene and pentylene with isobutane to form high-value alkylate for gasoline blending’. The high-octane and low-vapour pressure in alkylate make it a superior gasoline blendstock.

Axens provides several solutions to convert oil and biomass to cleaner fuels, production and purification of petrochemical intermediates, and natural gas treatment and conversion.
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