German refinery halts Russian oil imports over contamination

MOSCOW (MRC) - The PCK refinery in eastern Germany has halted imports of Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline after once again finding “slightly elevated” levels of organic chlorides, the refinery’s owner Shell told Handelsblatt newspaper on Friday, reported Reuters.

The pipeline, which brings oil from deep inside Russia to much of eastern and central Europe, has been plagued by a contamination crisis that disrupted flows from the world’s second-largest exporter of crude.

Organic cholorides are used in oil production but can damage refinery equipment if not removed.

In April, Transneft, the pipeline’s owner, pumped some 5 million tonnes of contaminated oil through its pipelines, forcing refineries throughout much of central and eastern Europe to suspend or reduce production at a cost of billions of euros.

As MRC informed before, Russia’s state pipeline monopoly Transneft will compensate all parties for losses incurred from contaminated oil, but they must prove the damage, a government official said in May 2019, as the first European refinery declared force majeure.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- INEOS Styrolution, the global leader in styrenics, has agreed with Unternehmensgruppe Theo Muller, a recognised leader in dairy products, to collaborate on developing a circular solution for polystyrene based on chemical recycling, said the producer in its press release.

"he joint project between INEOS Styrolution and Unternehmensgruppe Theo Muller focuses on the use of polystyrene that is recycled via depolymerisation, a process that converts post-consumer polystyrene waste back to its monomers. The advantage of this process is the generation of high-quality virgin polystyrene ultimately for food-related use. In other words, yoghurt cups made of recycled polystyrene will have the identical properties as yoghurt cups made of conventional polystyrene.

INEOS Styrolution and Unternehmensgruppe Theo Muller have agreed on a phased approach with a lab-scale phase to start this year, a pilot-scale phase starting in 2020 and a commercial-scale phase in 2022.

As an internationally operating food company, Unternehmensgruppe Theo Muller is continuously investigating technological opportunities that offer potential with regard to a circular economy.

Sven Riechers, Vice President Business Management, Standard Business EMEA at INEOS Styrolution adds: "We are very excited to join forces with a leading market player like Unternehmensgruppe Theo Muller. We are looking forward to a speedy and agile collaboration resulting in innovative solutions that may serve as an example in the industry."

The announcement is part of INEOS Styrolution’s ambitious efforts aiming at circularity for styrenics to save valuable resources, recycle styrenic waste and reduce the ecological footprint. The company’s efforts include research projects, collaboration across the value chain and partnerships with customers to optimise solutions concerning sustainability aspects.

As MRC reported before, in order to be set up for growth in the Iberia region, INEOS Styrolution has agreed on a new cooperation with Tecnopol for its standards business in Spain and Portugal. The new agreement is effective as of the beginning of 2019. INEOS Styrolution and Tecnopol are already looking back at a successful cooperation in Italy for the standard and a selected specialty portfolio. The agreement for Iberia covers INEOS Styrolution’s entire standards business (polystyrene and ABS standard polymers).

INEOS Styrolution is the leading, global styrenics supplier with a focus on styrene monomer, polystyrene, ABS Standard and styrenic specialties. With world-class production facilities and more than 85 years of experience, INEOS Styrolution helps its customers succeed by offering the best possible solution, designed to give them a competitive edge in their markets. The company provides styrenic applications for many everyday products across a broad range of industries, including Automotive, Electronics, Household, Construction, Healthcare, Packaging and Toys/ Sports/ Leisure. In 2018, sales were at 5.4 billion euros. INEOS Styrolution employs approximately 3,500 people and operates 20 production sites in ten countries.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SayanskKhimPlast (Irkutsk region), Russia's second largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer, has shut down its production capacities for a scheduled turnaround, according to the ICIS-MRC's Price report.

The plant's representative said PVC production was taken off-stream for a scheduled turnaround on 7 July. The outage will be long and will last for about 30 days. The plant's annual production capacity is 350,000 tonnes.

It is also worth noting that Bashkir Soda Company intends to shut its PVC production for a scheduled maintenance on 14 July. The shutdown will not be that long and will last for two weeks. The plant's annual production capacity is 240,000 tonnes.

JSC "Sayanskkhimplast" (Irkutsk region), established in 1998, is a complex of large-capacity chlororganic production facilities connected in a single production cycle. SayanskKhimPlast produces PVC, caustic soda and bleach. After commissioning of RusVinyl's PVC production (Nizhny Novgorod region), SayanskKhimPlast became Russia's second largest PVC producer.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shanghai?Sichuan Shengda has successfully started up a new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in Nanchong, Sichuan Province, China, as per Apic-online.

The PTA facility, which utilizes Invista's proprietary P7 PTA process technology, has a nameplate capacity of 1-million t/y. On-spec production was achieved on 24 May 2019.

The plant also uses Invista's proprietary R2R technology for the production of benzoic acid. Cost of the project was not given.

"With this start-up, IPT (Invista Performance Technologies) and our licensees have now successfully commissioned seven PTA projects totaling over 11-million tons per annum capacity since 2015," noted IPT President Mike Pickens.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in February 2019, Indorama Ventures (IVL) commenced production of PTA and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) at plants it acquired from Artlant PTA in Portugal and EIPET in Egypt, respectively.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) – MMEX Resources Corp a development stage company focusing on the acquisition, development and financing of oil, gas, refining and infrastructure projects in Texas and The Americas announced that it has completed the third and final leg of its product sales with another international company for its planned Pecos County projects previously announced by MMEX, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

"We have now signed the agreement to sell our planned naphtha production to a SuperMajor international energy and trading company for delivery by rail to the Texas Gulf refinery and petrochemical markets. This completes 100 percent of our refined product sales package with gold standard companies and all three off-take agreements provide the market for our project expansion in the Permian Basin. Again, it underscores the opportunity we offer to our area oil and gas producers with other take-away capacity and, quite importantly, these agreements have allowed us to initiate negotiations for MMEX plans to build and own crude oil, IMO 2020 marine fuel and naphtha storage and terminal facilities in the Texas Gulf Coast,” Jack W. Hanks, President & CEO of MMEX Resources Corp. said.

MMEX has announced plans to build a crude oil refinery complex in the Permian Basin in two phases, with Phase 1 being a 10,000 BPD Crude Distillation Unit which is expected to produce diesel, naphtha and residual fuel oil, and Phase 2 being a full-scale crude oil refinery with capacity of up to 100,000 BPD, projected to produce a full slate of refined products. Completion of the Phase 1 distillation unit is contingent upon obtaining the necessary financing for the project.
MRC