KBR earns extension on general maintenance services contract

MOSCOW (MRC) -- KBR, Inc. has announced that it has received a three-year extension to its existing General Maintenance Services (GMS) contract for the 440,000 bpd refinery at SATORP’s (a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Total) refining and petrochemicals project in Jubail, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as per Hydrcarbonprocessing.

Under the terms of the GMS contract, KBR, through its local joint venture subsidiary, will continue to provide preventive, predictive, corrective and shutdown maintenance services most notably for the Crude Distillation Units, Distillate Hydrocracker, Sulphur Recovery Unit, Aromatics, Catalytic Cracking Unit, Tank Farms and Port Loading Facilities among others.

"This contract extension confirms SATORP’s continued confidence in KBR as a full-service partner throughout the lifecycle of their asset, and KBR’s position as the preeminent market leader in Industrial Services," said Jay Ibrahim, KBR President, Energy Solutions -- Services. "We are also proud that our strong commitment to ZERO HARM has achieved over 2.3 million safe man-hours on this project."

KBR’s strategic partnership with SATORP has the potential to stimulate industry-wide changes to current maintenance outsourcing philosophies, as KBR intends to drive its proven digital transformation initiatives to maximize asset utilization, minimize opex and augment asset ROI for customers.

KBR has capitalized on driving digital transformation including robotics, modeling & simulation, data analytics, and enterprise software development from its government services business into the energy space.

"KBR’s culture of excellence is evident in its people’s expertise and professionalism," said Suleiman Mansour Ababtain, SATORP CEO. "We appreciate KBR as a business partner in diverse business segments, and look forward to expanding our partnership to leverage off its advanced capabilities for delivering operational excellence in our refinery."

As MRC informed earlier, in July 2018, SATORP selected Axens to evaluate, develop, and implement an Advanced Process Control (APC) system for its aromatics complex ParamaX producing high purity paraxylene and benzene.

SATORP, located in Jubail, includes a 400,000-bpd refinery and petrochemicals units with a combined total of 1 MMtpy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US refiners have turned to several lesser-used oil suppliers in the wake of US sanctions that restricted usual providers of widely-used grades as they gear up for peak driving season, reported Reuters.

Iraq, Nigeria, Brazil and Angola combined last month are set to deliver their most crude oil to the United States in more than 18 months, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and trade sources, helping deliver needed heavy and sour crudes.

All told, May imports from those countries were expected to come in at about 1.23 million barrels per day (bpd), more than double April’s haul. Those cargoes include 11 tankers carrying about 600,000 bpd of Iraqi crude, the most from that country in a year, Refinitiv data showed.

The bump in imports from those nations versus the prior month reflects reduced supply from Venezuela and Iran due to US sanctions, and declining OPEC production that has cut availability of heavy and medium sour grades. US refiners also were finishing spring maintenance and gearing up for vacation-season gasoline demand.

Cargoes from these four countries are designed to “offset a majority of the loss” of Venezuelan heavy crude from sanctions, trade sources said. The move to bar the flow of dollars to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro this year has halted US purchases from about 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) last year.

West African producers Nigeria and Angola are set to deliver 420,000 bpd combined this month, the highest in 13 months. Another 206,000 bpd of Brazilian crude were due to land in May, the most since August.

Receivers include the once-top US buyers of Venezuelan crude. Four tankers will deliver a combined 95,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude from Iraq, Nigeria and Brazil to Chevron Corp’s Pascagoula, Mississippi refinery, the most from those three countries in more than a year, the Refinitiv data showed.

Two tankers, the Leontios H, with about 500,000 barrels of heavy crude from Brazil, and the Richmond Voyager, with 1 million barrels of Iraq’s medium sour Basrah Light, discharged at Pascagoula in early May. The Cap Felix, with 1 million barrels of medium crude from Nigeria, and Myrtos, with 500,000 barrels of Brazilian crude, were scheduled to arrive last month, the data showed.

Three tankers chartered by Valero Energy Corp, the New Courage, the New Energy and the Pantariste, arrive this month in Louisiana, Texas and California with 187,000 bpd of Iraq’s Basrah Light.

Chevron does not comment on supply matters, spokesman Braden Reddall said. A Valero spokesman pointed to an April 25 earnings call where executives said a third of the crude processed in the first quarter came from “opportunistic” purchases from suppliers including Brazil.

Valero and Chevron were the top US buyers of Venezuelan crude last year, behind Citgo Petroleum, with 2018 imports of 166,000 bpd and 83,000 bpd, respectively. The two remain “very active in finding replacements,” one trader said.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PetroChina Lanzhou Petrochemical in in plans to brought on-stream its PP unit following a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company is likely to resume operations at the unit in mid-June 2019. The unit was shut in end-April, 2019.

Located at Gansu province in China, the PP unit has a production capacity of 110,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, PetroChina DaQing Refining & Chemical, another subsidiary of PetroChna, shut its PP unit for an unplanned maintenance work on January 22, 2019. The unit resumed production in end-January, 2019. Located in Daqing, China, the plant PP unit with production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

We also remind that in April 2019, LyondellBasell (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) announced that PetroChina will use the LyondellBasell Hostalen "Advanced Cascade Process" (Hostalen ACP) technology to produce 1,100,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) capacity.

PetroChina Company Limited, is a Chinese oil and gas company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing. It is China's biggest oil producer.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arkema said it has chosen a site in Jurong Island, Singapore, to build a new "world-scale" plant for the production of its Rilsan high-performance bio-sourced polyamides, according to Apic-online.

The plant will produce both the amino 11 monomer and its polymer, Rilsan polyamide 11, which is derived from castor oil. Completion is expected by late 2021. Cost of the project was not given.

"This major investment bolsters our global presence in bio-sourced materials, while bringing us significantly closer to our customers in Asia," noted Erwoan Pezron, global group president for Arkema's Technical Polymers business line.

"Singapore's industrial and innovation-friendly envi-ronment is, we believe, a key asset for our project," he added.

As MRC reported before, in late January 2017, Arkema announced a project for the sale to INEOS of its 50% stake in Oxochimie. Arkema produced oxo alcohols on the Lavera site (France) in a 50/50 manufacturing joint venture with INEOS. These products were used in part for the production of the group’s acrylic esters in Europe. And in early March 2017, Arkema completed the sale to INEOS of its 50% stake in Oxochimie, their oxo alcohols manufacturing joint venture, and of the associated business.

Arkema is a leading European supplier of chlorochemicals and PVC. Kynar and Kynar Flex are registered trademarks of Arkema Inc.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell, one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world, has announced that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly dividend of USD1.05 per share, representing a five percent increase over the company's first quarter 2019 dividend, as per the company's press release.

The dividend will be paid June 17, 2019 to shareholders of record June 10, 2019, with an ex-dividend date of June 7, 2019.

"LyondellBasell's commitment to providing a progressively growing dividend for our shareholders is the foundation of our capital deployment strategy," said Bob Patel, CEO of LyondellBasell. "This represents the eleventh increase since we began paying quarterly dividends in 2011."

The company also announced at its Annual General Meeting on May 31, 2019, shareholders approved a share repurchase program authorizing the company to repurchase up to 10 percent of the company's shares over the next 18 months. The repurchases will be executed from time to time through open market or privately negotiated transactions. LyondellBasell had approximately 370 million shares outstanding as of May 29, 2019.

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