SIBUR and Norner join forces to develop green products and technologies

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SIBUR, the largest integrated petrochemicals company in Russia, and Norner, a global leader in petrochemical R&D services, have signed an agreement to cooperate in product development and polymer recycling at SIBUR’s PolyLab, as per SIBUR's press release.

Thanks to their durability, strength, eco-friendliness and other advantages, such polymers as polyethylene and polypropylene are some of the most widely used synthetic materials, popular with the construction, utilities, automotive, healthcare, food and other industries. PolyLab’s key priority is to promote the use of polymers both to manufacture existing products, and to design innovative product solutions to drive technological advancement in healthcare, consumer goods, automotive, and construction industries. PolyLab will foster the use of recycled materials and the application of polymers in circular economy. To this end, samples of new PE and PP grades will be transformed at the Centre's pilot manufacturing lines into pipes, medical goods, films, food packaging, canisters and other products. This will provide a deeper insight into polymers’ properties and their impact on the end product quality to further improve the materials and boost production efficiency.

A leader in R&D services in polymers, Norway’s Norner АS has many years of practical and theoretical experience in synthesising, modifying and recycling polymers and adapting to the needs of end customers. Norner has been working with SIBUR in several projects during the last seven years, reducing cost and promoting value added polymer grades.

Under the cooperation agreement, SIBUR and Norner will jointly develop new product solutions and optimise polymer stabilising formulas. These will include innovative green polymer grades, catalysis testing, as well as new chemical and technical recycling technologies.

“Partnering with Norner will take our polymer production to the next level and will help us launch advanced grades in line with the highest environmental standards. I am certain that our joint expertise will move the recycling market forward,” said Management Board Member, Executive Director at SIBUR Sergey Komyshan.

"We are proud to see the PolyLab as a result of our cooperation with SIBUR" said Lars H. Evensen Director Business Development at Norner. "The plastics industry believes that plastics are a valuable resource that bring numerous benefits to modern society, significantly contributing to sustainable solutions. Investing in R&D like demonstrated by SIBUR is the only way to a more sustainable polymer industry."

As MRC reported before, in late May 2019, Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev cut the ribbon of the first domestic R&D centre for the development and testing of polymer products - SIBUR PolyLab located at the Skolkovo Innovation Centre.

SIBUR is a uniquely positioned vertically integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company. We own and operate Russia’s largest gas processing business in terms of associated petroleum gas processing volumes and are a leader in the Russian petrochemicals industry. As of 31 March 2014, SIBUR operated 27 production sites located all over Russia, had over 1,400 large customers engaged in the energy, chemical, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), automotive, construction and other industries in approximately 70 countries worldwide and employed over 27,000 personnel.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- More than a million tonnes of organic chloride contaminated oil from Russia's Druzhba ("Friendship") pipeline is expected to be shipped back from Belarus. The oil, diluted to usable levels is routed for Russian refineries and export ports, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The pipeline was halted in April after excessive levels of organic chloride used in oil extraction were found on the million-barrel-per-day pipeline that crosses Belarus and serves customers as far west as Germany.

Pipeline operator Transneft, which denies responsibility for the contamination, has agreed to pump back 1.3 million tonnes of oil from Belarus and has begun doing so.

It has pledged to reduce organic chloride levels that in some places topped 300 parts per million (ppm) to a usable 6 ppm by blending tainted crude with clean oil in its network, according to three industry sources who spoke to Reuters on Friday.

"Dirty oil will be stored and slowly diluted with clean volumes that go to Russian refineries and to all main ports - Novorossiisk, Primorsk, Ust-Luga," the source said.

Primorsk - the biggest Urals export port by volume - is currently the only purely clean Urals export route.

The oil will first be stored in tanks along the Russian part of the Druzhba pipeline, one of the sources said.

From Unecha near the border with Belarus it will be sent along the Unecha-Samara pipeline to storage in the Samara region which can store up to 1.5 million tonnes of oil, the source said.

Once mixed with clean flows it will be delivered to refineries in European Russia, the Baltic Sea export ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk and Novorossiisk on the Black Sea, the sources said.

Transneft and the Energy Ministry did not reply to Reuters requests for immediate comment.

As MRC wrote before, in early June 2019, the Czech oil refinery at Litvinov, owned by PKN Orlen unit Unipetrol, started receiving oil from state emergency reserves due to halt in Russian supplies via the Druzhba pipeline.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hanwha Chemical is likely take its polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant off-stream for maintenance, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that the company has scheduled to start turnaorund the plant in mid-June, 2019. The plant is likely to remain under maintenance for about 10 days.

Located at Yeosu, South Korea, the PVC plant have a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, Hanwha Chemical shut down at its PVC plant in Ulsan for a turnaround in October 2017 for a period of around 15-20 days. Located in Ulsan, South Korea, the PVC plant has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

Hanwha Group is one of the largest business conglomerate in South Korea. Founded in 1952 as Korea Explosives Inc., the group has grown into a large multi-profile business conglomerate, with diversified holdings stretching from explosives, their original business, to retail to financial services.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- SOCAR Energoresurs, a joint venture between Russia’s largest lender Sberbank and a group of investors, has acquired an 80% stake in Russia’s Antipinsky oil refinery, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to Sberbank.

The bank did not name the other investors.

The JV took control over the refinery and oilfields in Russia’s Orenburg region, the bank said in a statement.

Azeri state energy company SOCAR could join the project after an audit of the assets is completed, Sberbank said.

As MRC informed earlier, Russia’s Antipinsky oil refinery does not plan to receive oil last month and has removed itself from the delivery schedule. A London court has issued a worldwide order to freeze 225 million euros (USD252 million) in assets belonging to the oil refinery, owned by New Stream Group.

JSC Antipinsky Refinery was founded in July 2004 on the territory of one of the major oil and gas producing constituents of the Russian Federation - Tyumen Region, where most of Russian oil (64%) and natural gas (91%) reserves are concentrated.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Glencore’s head of oil, Alex Beard, who helped make the firm one of the world’s top three oil trading houses, will retire this month, the company said in yet another management shake-up amid US probes into its activities, reported Reuters.

Glencore, founded by trader Marc Rich, has come under US scrutiny in the past year over its business in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it produces cobalt and copper, and in Venezuela and Nigeria, where it trades oil and refined products.

Beard, 52, will be replaced by the head of oil marketing, Alex Sanna, 37, who was key in expanding Glencore’s refined products trading in recent years.

Beard’s move follows the retirement of other top allies of Glasenberg - Chris Mahoney, the long-serving head of Glencore’s agricultural business, and Aristotelis Mistakidis, the head of copper.

Glencore is worth USD44 billion and Mistakidis held a 3.2% stake in the company, worth USD1.4 billion at current prices, while Beard held a 2.5% stake worth USD1.1 billion.

Glasenberg is the largest shareholder of Glencore, with 8.8%, and built the firm from predominantly a trading house into a mining giant via its merger with Xstrata in 2012. He has said he may retire within the next three to five years.

Glasenberg, 62, revealed his retirement plans a few months after news broke about US investigations into Glencore.

Last July, Glencore said it had received a subpoena from the Department of Justice (DOJ) requesting documents and records on compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money-laundering statutes.

A previous US probe nearly destroyed Marc Rich in the 1980s when the United States accused the company of "trading with the enemy", Iran. It indicted Rich, who was pardoned years later by President Bill Clinton in 2001 during Clinton’s last days in office. Rich died in 2013.

Sources told Reuters the current DOJ investigation was focusing on the role of intermediaries and how they helped Glencore obtain contracts, including in oil trading.

In April, Glencore said the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission was also investigating whether the company and its units may have violated certain regulations through “corrupt practices".

The company said that probe was at an early stage and had a scope similar to that of the DOJ investigation.

Oxford-educated Beard joined Glencore in 1995 from BP, the biggest trading desk at that time, and became head of oil in 2007.

He embarked on expanding the firm into upstream, something trading houses had rarely done before, but the venture into Chad and Equatorial Guinea led to writedowns of over USD700 million.

Glencore’s traded oil volumes fluctuated between 4.5 and 6.0 million barrels per day in recent years - on par with rival Trafigura but behind the world’s top trading house, Vitol.

Last year, Glencore’s volumes shrank 17% because of unfavorable market conditions.

Sanna’s trading division will continue to report to chief executive Ivan Glasenberg, but oil assets, previously under Beard, will be transitioned to Peter Freyberg, the head of industrial assets, Glencore said on Monday.

Sanna, who studied economics in France, holds a master’s degree in international trade from Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris.

As MRC wrote before, in September 2018, South Africa’s competition watchdog approved Glencore’sroughly USD900 million bid for Chevron’s local and Botswana assets on Thursday, bolstering its chances of scuppering a rival bid from China’s Sinopec. Chevron agreed in 2017 to sell its stake to state-owned Sinopec before miner and commodities trader Glencore swooped in after reaching a deal with minority shareholders, who backed it and exercised preemptive rights on the sale.
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