Planned U.S. oil storage boom faces new scrutiny after tank-farm fire

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A three-day petrochemical fire that spread a cancer-causing chemical and thick smoke over Houston suburbs has spurred calls for tougher safety regulations that could affect a nearly dozen crude-export terminals proposed for the U.S. Gulf Coast, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Federal, state and local officials have begun investigating whether Mitsui & Co’s Intercontinental Terminals Co (ITC) met safety and environmental regulations after the fire in Deer Park, Texas, spread quickly among rows of giant tanks that hold up to 3.3 million gallons of fuel each.

The blaze released toxic benzene which led five school systems with more than 108,000 students to shut for two days, and prompted two cities to tell residents to stay indoors. It burned for three days and destroyed 11 tanks holding fuels used to make gasoline and plastics that sat along the nation’s busiest petrochemical port and among nine oil refineries.

On Friday, a leak from a containment dike at the facility prompted new travel restrictions in the immediate vicinity of the plant. Results from those reviews could affect proposed terminals that would add millions of barrels of oil storage capacity, to cater to a shale boom that has made the United States the world’s top oil producer with more than 12 million barrels pumped each day.

There are already some 90 million barrels of oil storage capacity in above-ground tanks near Houston, estimates data provider Genscape. Harris County, which oversees the ITC tank farm, plans to review the investigations and may propose changes to state regulations, said the county’s chief executive, Lina Hidalgo.

Environmental groups said the fire and lack of notice to residents exposed Texas’s weak oversight of energy and chemical storage sites. “I would like to think there will be a huge push and elected officials would do their due diligence,” said Elena Craft, senior director for climate and health at the Environmental Defense Fund. “We want accountability,” said Bryan Parras, a spokesman for environmental group Sierra Club.

ITC, which had 242 storage tanks holding about 13 million barrels of fuels, is not required to comply with county fire codes because it was built before the county adopted codes in late 2014, said Rachel Moreno, a spokeswoman for the county Fire Marshal.

ITC adheres to fire-prevention guidelines set by industry group the National Fire Prevention Association and the American Petroleum Institute, said ITC spokeswoman Alice Richardson. A temporary loss of water pressure on the first day of the blaze contributed to its spread.

However, critics say the NFPA guidelines set minimum standards and the use of advanced fire-protection systems could have more quickly extinguished the fire before it spread and released millions of tons of carbon monoxide, and thousands of pounds of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants.

The fire prevention group expects the investigations into the ITC fire could prompt changes to its guidelines, said Guy Colonna, NFPA’s senior director of engineering. Its existing recommendation for petrochemical tanks, called NFPA 30, does not require fixed fire suppressants, Colonna said.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sun Chemical has announced plans to build its first-ever North American production line for its polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) compounds at its DIC Imaging Products USA facility in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, said Canplastics.

The new PPS compounds production line is scheduled to begin operation in the fall of 2020. Combined with four other manufacturing sites located in Japan, China, Southeast Asia and Europe, the investment in North America will increase DIC Corporation’s overall annual PPS compounds production capacity by 3,000 metric tons to 46,000 metric tons.

“The decision to establish a production line in the United States is our response in meeting the expanding demand for PPS in North America and ensures a stable supply, shortened lead times and reinforces our ability to develop products that satisfy the quality requirements of our customers,” said Mehran Yazdani, president of Sun Chemical Advanced Materials.

PPS compounds are super-engineered plastics that are used widely as an alternative to metal materials in automotive components and other products, and are growing in popularity: The global market for PPS compounds is expected to be 20 per cent higher in 2021 than in 2017.

Headquartered in Parsippany, N.J., Sun Chemical produces pigments, polymers, liquid compounds, solid compounds, and application materials. Together with its parent company DIC Corp., Sun Chemical has annual sales of more than USD7.5 billion and over 20,000 employees worldwide.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian petrochemical producer Sibur's 100,000 mt/year dioctyl terephthalate plant in Russia's Perm Krai region has started production, said Spglobal.

"Sibur has managed the first test shipment of its DOTP to its client in line with commissioning works," the spokeswoman said. "Construction is 100% complete."

DOTP is a phthalate-free plasticizer used in cables, flooring and roof coatings and other materials for the construction industry.

Production will use Sibur's own feedstocks such as 2-ethylhexanol and is seen as the next step in Sibur's added-value chain.

The startup of the DOTP plant was expected to reduce some length on the European 2-eh market. However, one oxo-alcohol producer said the impact of the startup had not yet been felt on the 2-eh market. "Length of 2-eh is still there," the producer said.

S&P Global Platts last assessed 2-eh Thursday at Eur1,050/mt FD NWE, down Eur20/mt on the week, due to market length and reduced buying interest over Brexit uncertainties.

Plasticizers are used in plastics or other materials to impart viscosity, flexibility, softness, or other properties to the finished product.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Peru’s state-owned energy company will halt operations at its flagship oil refinery Talara for about a year starting in November, reported Reuters.

Talara will halt operations to complete a USD5 billion expansion project, the company said.

Petroperu said it plans to import fuel in that period to ensure demand is met in the Andean country of about 30 million people. It did not specify what kind of fuel it would import.

Petroperu would continue to buy oil from companies that operate in Peru and would process the oil at its Conchan refinery, the company said in a statement.

Talara, on Peru’s northern Pacific coast, is the second largest oil refinery in Peru after Repsol’s Pampilla.

The USD5 billion project to upgrade Talara, expanding its processing capacity to 95,000 barrels of oil per day from 65,000, started in 2014 and is about 73 percent complete.

Peru is a net oil importer. Petroperu said Peru’s fuel imports will fall significantly once the expansion is complete, which it estimated would happen at the end of 2020.

As MRC informed before, Mexico will delay the construction of the Dos Bocas refinery and instead funnel the USD2.5 billion earmarked in 2019 for the project into state oil firm Pemex, Arturo Herrera, Mexico’s deputy finance minister, told the financial Times in an interview in March 2019.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US crude oil stockpiles last week fell by nearly 10 million barrels, the most since July, boosted by strong export and refining demand, reported Reuters with reference to the Energy Information Administration.

Crude inventories fell by 9.6 million barrels in the week to March 15, surprising analysts who had expected an increase of 309,000 barrels, according to a Reuters poll.

That brought overall crude inventories, not including the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, down to 439.5 million barrels, the lowest since January.

Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub were also down by 468,000 barrels, EIA said.

Net US crude imports fell last week by 660,000 barrels per day as exports alone rose over 800,000 bpd to 3.4 MMbpd, near an all-time record.

The four-week moving average of exports last week was 3 MMbpd, double where it was at this time a year ago, as the four-week average of imports fell to 6.6 MMbpd, the lowest since March 1996.

US crude prices rose after the data was released, hitting levels not seen since Nov. 12. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 22 cents, or 0.4 percent, at USD59.25 per barrel as of 10:55 a.m. EDT (1455 GMT), after touching a high of USD59.60 a barrel. Brent crude rose 27 cents to USD67.86 a barrel.

"I think we’re starting to see the impact of the OPEC production cuts. We’re seeing the impact of the Venezuelan cuts, they’re starting to show up in the numbers. Refiners are responding to strong demand, so they’re keeping those numbers relatively high," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies have curbed supplies since the beginning of the year, while US sanctions on Venezuela and Iran have cut exports.

US crude production has, however, been surging to record highs since last year, with output last week rising 100,000 bpd, back to its 12.1 million-bpd peak.

"Domestic production held steady, but even at 12 million barrels per day, the export wave is keeping supplies from growing. Demand for gasoline rose sharply, as well, rivaling peak demand levels," said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital in New York.

Refinery crude runs rose by 178,000 bpd as utilization rates rose by 1.3 percentage points to 88.9 percent of total refining capacity, the highest in nearly two months, EIA data showed.

Gasoline stocks fell by 4.6 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.4 million-barrel drop.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 4.1 million barrels, versus expectations for a 1.1 million-barrel drop, the EIA data showed.
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