Neftekhim Ltd shut PP production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kazakh Neftekhim Ltd, Kazakhstan's only polypropylene (PP) producer, shut down its PP production for a scheduled maintenance, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The plant's customers said the Kazakh producer has taken off-stream its PP production by 2 May due to technical issues. At the same time, according to the schedule, the turnaround was to start on 7 May. Thus, PP production was shut a few days ahead of schedule, the outage will last for about 30 days.

Neftekhim Ltd was commissioned in 2009. The company produces methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) and polypropylene (PP). The plant's PP production with the capacity of 45,000 tonnes/year was launched in 2011; the plant did not have PP granulation unit then, polymer was produced in the form of powder, which limited its field of application.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indian Oil Corp, the country’s top refiner, plans to shut units in phases at its northeast plants from August to produce cleaner fuels, reported Reuters with reference to sources.

Domestic refiners have lined up upgrade plans ahead of full-scale roll-out of Euro VI-compliant fuels in the country from April 2020.

IOC’s refineries in the state of Assam are very old and small in size. These refineries get incentives from the government to protect their gross refining margins and cater to fuel demand in the land-locked region.

IOC will shut a delayed coker, hydrotreater and gasoline units for about 15 days for catalyst replacement at its 13,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) Digboi refinery, the sources said.

At the 48,000-bpd Bongaigaon refinery, it will shut one of the two crude units, a delayed coker, diesel hydrotreater and hydrogen generation unit for three months from September, they said.

The second crude unit at the Bongaigaon refinery will be idle as most units at the plant will be shut. The refiner will also shut gasoline units at the plant for 20 days in September to install a new naphtha hydrotreater.

It will fully shut its 20,000-bpd Guwahati refinery in the first quarter of 2020 to modify the plant for producing Euro VI-compliant fuels, they added.

Apart from revamping the units, IOC aims to raise the capacity of Guwahati refinery to 24,000 bpd.

IOC will source fuels from other refineries to meet demand in the northeast due to the shutdown of units, they added.

IOC was not immediately available for comment.

As MRC wrote before, Indian Oil Corporation's Rs 34,555-crore 15 million tonnes per annum Paradip Refinery was commissioned in phases from March 2015 onwards. Indian Oil Corporation was conducting feasibility studies to set up a petrochemical complex at Paradip in Odisha for Rs 20,000 crore. The petrochemical complex will be built in the vicinity of the company’s to-be-commissioned 15-mln tpa greenfield refinery at Paradip. The petrochemical complex will be in addition to the already announced Rs 3,150-crore polypropylene project at the same location, the foundation stone for which was laid by MOS for petroleum and natural gas.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited, or IndianOil, is an Indian state-owned oil and gas corporation with its headquarters in New Delhi, India.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Israel’s Oil Refineries (ORL) said its chief executive, Yashar Ben Mordechai, will step down at the end of the month, citing personal reasons, said Hydracarbonprocessing.

Ben Mordechai will be replaced temporarily by his deputy, Shlomi Bason, who oversees human resources, safety and security, and environmental issues. ORL, Israel’s largest refining and petrochemicals group, said its board had formed a search committee for a permanent CEO.

The company also said that its chairman, Ovadia Eli, who was due to step down in the second quarter, will stay on until July 1 when his replacement, Johanan Locker, officially begins.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ONGC Petro additions Ltd (OPaL) has shut a polypropylene (PP) plant for a brief maintenance, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in India informed that the company has halted operations at the plant on May 6, 2019. The plant is likely to resume production on May 10, 2019.

Located at Dahej in the western India state of Gujarat, the plant has a production capacity of 340,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, in late 2016, OPaL started up its new cracker in India. Located at Dahej in the western India state of Gujarat, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 1.1 million mt/year and propylene production capacity of 400,000 mt/year. And new PP plant was launched in December 2016, although initially the start-up was scheduled for May 2016.

OPaL is a joint venture of Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC - 26%), Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL - 17%) and Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. (GSPC - 5%), with the balance held by other investors and public shares.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Polish pipeline operator PERN said it was talking with refineries about how to decontaminate their oil after Poland stopped deliveries of tainted crude from Russia last month, said Reuters.

"PERN is in constant contact with refineries in terms of parameters of oil transferred," PERN said in a statement.

The operator said its refinery clients continued to refine crude as PERN was supplying them with oil accumulated in the system or delivered by sea.

Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Slovakia and other countries halted oil imports via the Druzhba pipeline in April after finding contaminants that can damage refinery equipment.
MRC