LyondellBasell selected S & B to perform construction for ethers unit at world-scale PO/TBA project

MOSCOW (MRC) -- S & B Engineers and Constructors, Ltd. (S & B) announced that it was selected by LyondellBasell to perform construction for a portion of the PO/TBA Project, which will install the world’s largest propylene oxide (PO) and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) plant, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The PO/TBA Project, which represents the single-largest capital investment in the client’s history, will be split into two main facilities: a PO/TBA plant to be located in Channelview, Texas and an ethers unit to be located in Pasadena, Texas.

Under the contract, S & B is constructing the new 34-acre ethers unit at LyondellBasell’s Bayport Complex in Pasadena. The ethers unit will convert TBA into two high-octane fuel additives which will be blended in gasoline to reduce emissions.

"S & B is honored to be trusted by the client with such an important and historic project," said Tommy Collins, Executive Vice President and COO of S & B. "We are proud to play a part in LyondellBasell’s major US Gulf Coast organic growth program, which will bring significant economic benefits and job growth to Houston, S & B’s hometown since 1967."

The work is being executed using S & B’s Managing with Certainty execution philosophy, including our industry-leading project management system (iPIMS) and innovative Integrated Project PlanningTM toolset.

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.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil trader, has started building a small oil refinery at its storage terminal in Malaysia that will provide low-sulfur fuel for ships, reported Reuters with reference to a senior company official.

The project consists of a crude distillation unit that can process 30,000 barrels per day of crude and is located on the same site as Vitol’s oil storage terminal at Tanjung Bin in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, Vitol Asia’s President and Chief Executive Officer Kho Hui Meng said.

A construction unit under China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) is handling the project which will involve moving a second-hand CDU from China to the site, he said on the sidelines of the Asia Oil & Gas Conference.

The project is expected to be completed in May 2020 and will augment Vitol’s refinery in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates in providing low-sulfur fuel oil for ships, Kho said.

The global shipping industry will switch to marine fuel, known as bunker fuel, containing 0.5% sulfur or less from the start of 2020, down from the current 3.5%, as mandated by the International Maritime Organization.

Companies such as Germany’s Uniper and the United Arab Emirates’ Brooge Petroleum and Gas Investment Co (BPGIC) are either expanding their plants or building a new refinery in Fujairah, a ship refueling hub on the east coast of the UAE, to meet rising demand.

The new Malaysian refinery will be able to process a wide variety of low-sulfur oil available in the market including US West Texas Intermediate crude that Vitol trades in, Kho said.

Production of low-sulfur fuel from Vitol’s new refining unit will be just in time to meet rising demand as current stockpiles of such fuel in the region would have been drawn down by the middle of next year, he said.

Major oil companies and trading houses are stocking up low-sulfur bunker fuels in anticipation of a surge in demand for the fuel in 2020.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- PetroChina DaQing Refining & Chemical has restarted its polypropylene (PP) unit following an unplanned maintenance work, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has resumed operations at the unit on June 26, 2019. The unit remained off-line for around one week.

Located in Daqing, China, the plant PP unit with production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, PetroChina has nearly doubled the amount of Russian crude being processed at its refinery in Dalian, the company’s biggest, since January 2018, as a new supply agreement had come into effect. The Dalian Petrochemical Corp, located in the northeast port city of Dalian, is expected to process 13 million tonnes, or 260,000 bpd of Russian pipeline crude this year, up by about 85 to 90 percent from last year’s level. Dalian has the capacity to process about 410,000 bpd of crude. The increase follows an agreement worked out between the Russian and Chinese governments under which Russia’s top oil producer Rosneft will supply 30 million tonnes of ESPO Blend crude to PetroChina in 2018, or about 600,000 bpd. That would represent an increase of 50 percent over 2017 volumes. The additional oil sent to Dalian is about 120,000 bpd and will make up the bulk of the Russian increases.

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.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical (PrefChem), a joint venture between Petronas and Saudi Aramco, is expected to restart a crude distillation unit at its oil refinery in Malaysia in July, reported Reuters with reference to sources.

The Pengerang Refining development, part of Petronas’ USD27 billion Pengerang Integrated Complex, consists of a 300,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) oil refinery and a petrochemical complex with a production capacity of 7.7 million tonnes per year in the southern Malaysian state of Johor.

The refinery stopped trial runs in April for safety checks after a fire occurred at the atmospheric residue desulfurization (ARDS) unit.

Contractors are still assessing the extent of damage at the fire-hit ARDS unit and repairs could take between three months and two years, one of the sources said, citing initial estimates.

The CDU will be processing low-sulfur crude in the absence of the desulfurization unit, the sources said.

The ARDS unit was set up to remove sulfur from fuel oil which is then passed through a residue fluid catalytic cracker (RFCC) - a secondary refining unit that upgrades residual fuels into higher quality products such as gasoline. The ARDS unit is located close to the refinery’s CDUs.

The refinery is expected to produce fuel in August-September although output may not meet commercial specifications yet. A 1.2-million-tonnes-per-year naphtha cracker at the site started trial runs this month.

By restarting the CDU in July, the refinery is working toward producing fuel that meets commercial specification by the end of the year, the sources said.

The project, originally known as RAPID, or Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development, was to resume operations by the end of this year, Petronas said in a statement last month.

Petronas and PrefChem have not responded to emailed requests for comment.

As MRC wrote earlier, Petronas plans to build a C6-based metallocene linear LDPE plant and a low density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) swing plant at its greenfield integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in southern Johor state by mid-2019. The proposed metallocene LLDPE will have a capacity of 350,000 tpa, while the LDPE/EVA will have a capacity of about 150,000 tpa. The two plants are part of Petronas' planned Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development project in Pengerang at Johor.

Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil and Global Thermostat said they have signed a joint development agreement to advance breakthrough technology that can capture and concentrate carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sources, including power plants, and the atmosphere, reported Reuters.

The companies will evaluate the potential scalability of Global Thermostat’s carbon capture technology for large industrial use. If technical readiness and scalability is established, pilot projects at ExxonMobil facilities could follow.

"Advancing technologies to capture and concentrate carbon dioxide for storage and potential industrial use is among a suite of ExxonMobil research programs focused on developing lower-emissions solutions to mitigate the risks of climate change," said Vijay Swarup, vice president of research and development for ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company.

"Our scientists see potential in this exciting technology that could lead to more affordable methods to reduce emissions in power generation and manufacturing, along with removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."

ExxonMobil and Global Thermostat are also exploring opportunities to identify economic uses for captured carbon dioxide.

"Scaling solutions that can address climate change globally requires significant investment, innovation and collaboration," said Peter Eisenberger, chief technology officer and co-founder of Global Thermostat.

"Global Thermostat’s game-changing direct-air capture and flue gas capture technologies offer a way to transform the risks associated with carbon dioxide emissions into a global solution that could satisfy both business and environmental objectives. By partnering with ExxonMobil, we’re harnessing the expertise and capabilities of one of the world’s largest energy companies to accelerate our ability to realize that vision."

ExxonMobil’s partnership with Global Thermostat expands the company’s collaborative efforts with other companies and academic institutions that are focused on developing new energy technologies, improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The company recently committed to spend up to USD100 million over 10 years on research with the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and National Energy Technology Laboratory to bring lower-emissions technologies to commercial scale. Since 2000, ExxonMobil has invested more than USD9 billion in energy efficiency and lower-emission technologies such as carbon capture and next generation biofuels. ExxonMobil also works with about 80 universities around the world to explore next-generation energy technologies.

As MRC wrote earlier, in October 2017, ExxonMobil Chemical Company commenced production on the first of two new 650,000 tons-per-year high-performance polyethylene (PE) lines at its plastics plant in Mont Belvieu, Texas. The full project, part of the company’s multi-billion dollar expansion project in the Baytown area and ExxonMobil’s broader Growing the Gulf expansion initiative, will increase the plant’s polyethylene capacity by approximately 1.3 million tons per year.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
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