AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group to expand its spent catalyst recycling capacity

MOSCOW (MRC) -- AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V. announced that its Supervisory Board has approved a capital project to double its spent catalyst recycling capacity by building a new, greenfield plant in the operational vicinity of its current spent catalyst processing plant in Cambridge Ohio, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This new plant will be financed with the proceeds from the sale of up to $350 million tax-exempt bonds to be issued by the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority. The proceeds of the bonds will be lent to AMG Vanadium LLC, a subsidiary of AMG, and AMG will guarantee the repayment of the bonds.

The bonds will be senior, unsecured obligations of AMG. AMG has engaged Citigroup Global Markets and Morgan Stanley to act as underwriters with respect to the bonds. Subject to necessary approvals from the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority, AMG expects the bonds to be marketed at the end of June.

AMG is a global critical materials company at the forefront of CO2 reduction trends. AMG produces highly engineered specialty metals and mineral products and provides related vacuum furnace systems and services to the transportation, infrastructure, energy, and specialty metals & chemicals end markets. AMG Critical Materials produces aluminum master alloys and powders, ferrovanadium, natural graphite, chromium metal, antimony, lithium, tantalum, niobium and silicon metal. AMG Technologies produces titanium aluminides and titanium alloys for the aerospace market; designs, engineers, and produces advanced vacuum furnace systems; and operates vacuum heat treatment facilities, primarily for the transportation and energy industries.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- KBR, Inc. announced that it has been awarded a contract by Sonatrach and Cepsa to provide Basic Engineering Design (BED) and Front End Engineering Design (FEED) for the Rhoude el Krouf Field (RKF) redevelopment in Algeria, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The RKF field, located in the Algeria desert south-East of Hassi Messaoud, includes an oil and gas Central Processing Facilities (CPF) with gathering network and all associated structures. The redevelopment will add an additional oil and gas treatment train to the existing facilities. This project is part of Sonatrach’s and Cepsa’s objectives to support the increase of Algeria’s oil and gas capacity.

The project will be executed from KBR’s London and Chennai offices over an eight month period.

"KBR is proud of its more than 45 year history in Algeria," said Jay Ibrahim, KBR President, Energy Solutions - Services. "This project will demonstrate KBR’s ability to utilize its global resources to provide the full capabilities of engineering and FEED services."

As MRC wrote previously, in May 2018, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) announced it had signed a project development agreement with Cepsa of Spain for a new, world-scale Linear Alkylbenzene (LAB) facility in ADNOC’s refining and petrochemicals complex in Ruwais, UAE.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sasol Ltd., the world’s biggest maker of fuel from coal, said the cost of its giant Lake Charles chemicals project in Louisiana will balloon to as much as USD12.9 billion, or about 50% more than initially planned, said Bloomberg.

The cost blowout is a further setback for the development that’s part of the South African company’s plan to expand internationally. It has already suffered a number of budget increases because of factors including weather delays. Sasol shares slumped the most in 20 years after the announcement on Wednesday.

“We’re extremely disappointed with the increase” in costs, co-Chief Executive Officer Bongani Nqwababa said on a conference call Wednesday. The company said in a statement it’s taken measures since February to “further strengthen the oversight, leadership for the project and frequency of reporting,” and will accelerate a previously announced asset-sale program.

The Lake Charles Chemical Project -- dubbed LCCP -- will, once completed, boost the portion of chemicals in Sasol’s sales mix to 70%. It’s one of two massive plants originally planned in the U.S., but the second -- a gas-to-liquids project -- was abandoned during the oil-price crash. The chemical plant was approved in 2014.

Sasol announced on Wednesday a new cost range of USD12.6 billion to USD12.9 billion for the LCCP project, about USD1 billion more than it forecast three months ago. Back in 2016, then-CEO David Constable had said an increase to USD11 billion was a “worst-case scenario.” The company attributed the latest hike to a “correction for duplication of investment allowances,” higher contract expenses, unanticipated work and defective materials.

In last June, Honeywell announced that Secunda Synfuels Operations, an operating division of Sasol South Africa Ltd., will use a Honeywell Connected Plant service to monitor the operating reliability of its two Honeywell UOP CCR Platforming units at its refinery in Secunda.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Daelim Industrial Co.Ltd is in plans to shut linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant for a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that the plant is planned to be taken off-stream on May 23, 2019 and it is likely to remain under maintenance for around four weeks.

Located in Yeosu, South Korea, the LLDPE plant has a production capacity of 260,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, in February 2019, Saudi Aramco with its partner Total announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Daelim, a South Korean petrochemical company. Under the MoU, Daelim is planning to build a new 80,000 tons state-of-the-art Polyisobutylene (PIB) plant, which is expected to come on-stream in 2024. This agreement is another step to drive Saudi Aramco’s petrochemicals growth strategy. This follows Saudi Aramco’s announcement in October 2018 to launch an engineering study to build a large petrochemical complex in Jubail.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Imports of polyethylene (PE) into Ukraine increased to about 90,200 tonnes in the first four months of 2019, up 18% compared to the same period of 2018. An increase in external supplies accounted for almost all grades of ethylene polymers, according to a MRC's DataScope report.

Last month's PE imports to Ukraine rose to 25,100 tonnes from 23,200 tonnes in March, the supply volumes of all types of ethylene polymers increased except for high density polyethylene (HDPE). Overall PE imports reached 90,200 tonnes in January-April 2019, compared to 76,500 tonnes a year earlier. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers grew, with HDPE accounting for the greatest increase.

The supply structure by PE grades looked the following way over the stated period.

April LDPE imports decreased to 9,600 tonnes from 10,300 tonnes a month earlier, with the reduction in supplies accounted for film polyethylene. Overall HDPE imports reached 33,300 tonnes in the first four months of 2019, compared to 23,900 tonnes a year earlier.

April imports of low density polyethylene (LDPE) into Ukraine were about 6,900 tonnes against 6,800 tonnes a month earlier. Overall LDPE imports reached 26,500 tonnes over the stated period, up by 8% year on year.

Last month's imports of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) were about 7,500 tonnes, compared to 5,200 tonnes in March. In general, January - April LLDPE imports into Ukraine increased to 25,900 tonnes compared with 23,700 tonnes year on year.

Imports of other grades of polyethylene, including EVA for the period under review reached about 4,500 tonnes against 4,400 tonnes a year earlier.


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