Chinese WEPEC refinery to send 900,000 barrels of gasoline to Mexico

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China’s West Pacific Petrochemical Corp, or WEPEC, is set to export 900,000 barrels of gasoline to Mexico this month amid a swelling glut of the motor fuel at home, reported Reuters with reference to sources.

The three 300,000-barrel cargoes will make up WEPEC’s biggest monthly shipment to the Latin American country, said the source, who asked not to be named.

The 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) Dalian-based refinery, one of China’s main export-focused refineries, first sent gasoline to Mexico in the second-half of 2018 as it looked for markets beyond Asian oil hub Singapore, its traditional export destination.

The lower-grade export fuel, which has an octane number of 91, is produced by blending lower-grade gasoline with naphtha, said the source, without giving further details.

Mexico has become increasingly dependent on fuel imports, mainly from the United States, due to a fall in domestic output because of longstanding refinery problems, forcing state-run Pemex to import nearly 600,000 bpd of fuel last year.

The WEPEC refinery, operated by state oil and gas major PetroChina, is one of China’s largest gasoline exporters with monthly overseas shipments estimated at some 1.3 million barrels, said the source.

PetroChina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China is facing a growing overhang of refined oil products after the start-up of two new mega plants coincided with a slowdown in domestic demand, forcing some refineries to scale back output.

As MRC wrote before, in H1 June 2019. PetroChina launched its Huabei refinery’s expanded 10 million tons crude processing capacity after it passed preliminary testing.
MRC

Tainted oil to be refined in Lithuania

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Tainted oil from the Mendeleev Prospect tanker was unloaded in Klaipeda, Lithuania and will be refined in the Mazeikiu refinery with no impact on the final product, reported Reuters with reference to a board member from Poland's biggest oil refiner PKN Orlen.

"The tanker arrived in Klaipeda and was unloaded there. In the future, oil will be processed in our refinery in Lithuania it will not have an impact on the quality of the processed oil," PKN management board member Zbigniew Leszczynski told reporters.

Leszczynski added that he expects PKN Orlen to present claims to its suppliers within weeks regarding Russian tainted oil.

As MRC wrote before, France's Total sold a cargo of contaminated Russian Urals oil to Poland's PKN Orlen for its refinery in Lithuania, three sources familiar with the shipment told Reuters.
MRC

Taiyo Vinyl to resume PVC production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiyo Vinyl is in plans to brought on-stream its polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant following a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed that the company is likely to resume operations at the plant in end-July, 2019. The plant was shut for maintenance in end-June, 2019.

Located in Senboku in Japan, the PVC plant has a production capacity of 170,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported previously, Taiyo Vinyl took its PVC plant off-stream for a maintenance turnaround in early-March 2018. The planned maintenance remained in force for around 8 weeks. Located in Yokkaichi in Japan, the PVC plant has a production capacity of 310,000 mt/year.

Taiyo Vinyl Corporation, a subsidiary of Tosoh Group, is one of Japan's largest manufacturers of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The plant in Chiba is one of the company's key assests, which supplies 50% of its products to the domestic market. The company also produces PVC at the plants in Yokkaichi and Osaka with the annual capacity of 310,000 and 150,000 tonnes, respectively.
MRC

PTTGC starts maintenance at HDPE unit

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC), has shut its No. 1 high density polyethylene (HDPE) unit for maintenance, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Thailand, informed that, the company has halted operations at the plant for maintenance on July 18, 2019. The unit is expected to remain shut, for about 20 days.

Located at Map Ta Phut, Thailand, the No. 1 HDPE plant has a production capacity of 275,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, PTT started commercial operations at its new 400,000 mt/year metallocene C6 linear low density polyethylene plant at Map Ta Phut, Thailand, in the first quarter of 2018.

PTT Global Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a year.
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Yokogawa to establish open process automation test bed for ExxonMobil

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Yokogawa Electric Corporation announced that it has been selected by ExxonMobil to be the Open Process Automation (OPA) system integrator responsible for establishing the company’s OPA Test Bed, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Development work and experiments conducted on the Test Bed will support ExxonMobil’s effort to move towards a standards-based, open, secure and interoperable process control architecture.

ExxonMobil will use the Test Bed to evaluate candidate components and standards and provide the basis for moving OPA technology into initial industrial field trials. Yokogawa’s development office for the Test Bed will be located near ExxonMobil’s Houston Campus in Spring, Texas, and the initial stage is planned to be operational in Q4 2019.

ExxonMobil and Yokogawa are members of The Open Group Open Process Automatio Forum (OPAF), an international forum of end users, system integrators, suppliers, academia, and standards organizations who are working together to develop the specifications for utilizing OPA technology in next-generation process control systems. An OPA-based control system is designed to support the integration of best-in-class components and provide both configuration and application portability across components from different suppliers.

The ExxonMobil OPA Test Bed will leverage the existing OPA development work and technological expertise of Yokogawa’s US Technology Center. To house the Test Bed and facilitate the objectives of this collaborative project, Yokogawa will open an office near Spring, Texas. ExxonMobil intends to share the results of systems tests using the Test Bed with their collaboration partners and OPAF. ExxonMobil will also encourage their collaboration partners to utilize the Test Bed to evaluate additional components that will be used in their independent field trials.

"We are looking forward to working with Yokogawa to stand up and operate the Test Bed for ExxonMobil and our collaboration partners," stated Brad Houk, project manager for ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company. "This is an important milestone in the use of OPAF’s standards to create an industrial control system. ExxonMobil’s key criteria for system integrator selection included a demonstrated understanding of the technical requirements to create an OPA system from heterogeneous components and the ability to function as an agnostic broker of components from all suppliers."

Tsuyoshi Abe, a Yokogawa senior vice president and head of the company's Marketing Headquarters, commented, “Yokogawa is proactively participating in open architecture initiatives such as Open Process Automation with industry players globally. We are honored to be selected for this key project, and are looking forward to working with ExxonMobil, its collaboration partners and the industry at the Test Bed facility to accelerate creation of an OPA ecosystem."

As MRC reported before, 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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