LyondellBasell to cut 68 jobs at former A. Schulman plant in Massachusetts

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell Industries (LBI) is cutting 68 jobs at a former A. Schulman Inc. compounding plant in Worcester, as per RubberNews.

The layoffs were included in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act (WARN) notice filed with the state of Massachusetts for the week of July 19. The first effective date for the layoffs is Sept. 30.

Officials with LBI in Houston could not be reached for comment.

LBI acquired Fairlawn, Ohio-based Schulman for USD2.25 billion in early 2018. That deal added 54 Schulman production sites to LBI's own 18. At the time, market watchers said that it was unlikely that all 72 sites would remain open.

In late 2018, Plastics News asked Jim Guilfoyle - executive vice president of LBI's Advanced Polymer Solutions unit, which includes the former Schulman business - about possible plant closings. He declined to comment on specific locations, but said that the unit "has a lot of integration ahead of us, but we also have platforms for growth."

Guilfoyle, at that time, pointed out that LyondellBasell plans to achieve USD150 million in cost synergies from the Schulman acquisition through several steps, including better logistics and procurement.

"We're still working through the plants," he said. "We need to optimize the footprint. We're looking at LyondellBasell sites as well as Schulman."

Schulman had acquired the 120,000-sq.-ft.Worcester plant in 2012 when it paid USD36.5 million for ECM Plastics Inc., a maker of custom compounds and color and additive concentrates. ECM employed 140 at that time and had annual sales of USD40 million.

A. Schulman, Inc. is a leading international supplier of high-performance plastic compounds, composites and resins headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Since 1928, the company has been providing innovative solutions to meet its customers' demanding requirements. The company's customers span a wide range of markets such as packaging, mobility, building & construction, electronics & electrical, agriculture, personal care & hygiene, sports, leisure & home, custom services and others. The company employs approximately 5,200 people and has 54 manufacturing facilities globally. A. Schulman reported net sales of approximately USD2.5 billion for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2017.

LyondellBasell is one of the world's largest plastics, chemical and refining companies and a member of the S&P 500. LyondellBasell manufactures products at 55 sites in 17 countries. LyondellBasell is also a leading licensor of polypropylene and polyethylene technologies. The more than 250 polyolefin process licenses granted by LyondellBasell are twice that of any other polyolefin technology licensor.
MRC

ExxonMobil and SABIC award MEG contract for GCGV project

MOSCOW (MRC) -- CTCI, Taiwan’s leading EPC contractor, has secured Gulf Coast Growth Ventures (GCGV) Monoethylene Glycol (MEG) EPC Project in the United States by forming a Joint Venture, CTCI McDermott Integrated (CMI), with McDermott, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The world-scale downstream module project sets a new record in contract value CTCI secures in the US hydrocarbon market, and is CTCI’s first project to fully utilize its modularization technology in the US EPC market.

The project owner is a Joint Venture between ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC).

The MEG Project is located in San Patricio County, Texas, which enjoys ready access to rail and deep water port facilities. With the existing infrastructure and proximity to raw materials, this has created a positive business climate to make good use of the shale gas development in the US and booming local petrochemical industry.

GCGV acquired environmental permits in June, 2019. The completion of the Project, anticipated by 2022, is expected to bring production of 1.1 MTA monoethylene glycol (MEG) annually to satisfy the growing demands for MEG.

CTCI has accumulated experience in the hydrocarbon business since 1979 and has executed high-end EPC projects in the petrochemical processing, chemical, and LNG markets around the world. "With this Project, CTCI extends its service upward to front-end engineering design." said John T. Yu, Group Chairman of CTCI. "CTCI leverages its equipment modularization experience to that of the whole plant, a milestone for our modularization technology. We are committed to providing comprehensive engineering services to our Client, staying true to our brand spirit of being ‘The Most Reliable."

As MRC informed 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 second line has started-up recently. The expansion increases plant production capacity by 65 percent or 650,000 tons per year, bringing site capacity to nearly 1.7 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.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the world's market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
MRC

Japan refiners need to cut more capacity as demand falls

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Japanese oil refiners need to cut more production capacities as domestic demand is expected to decline further, the head of the Japan Petroleum Association (PAJ) said after JXTG Holdings Inc's plan to close its Osaka refinery, reported Reuters.

"Japanese refiners with ageing facilities fall behind South Korean rivals with large export-targeted facilities in terms of cost competitiveness," PAJ President Takashi Tsukioka, who is also the chairman of refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd, told reporters on Wednesday.

"Japanese oil refiners will need to close more facilities to meet sliding demand, but we don't know how long that has to continue," he said. For Japanese refiners, oil loading and shipping from the Middle East remain as usual despite heightened tensions in the area after a US Navy ship took defensive action against a second Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz last week, Tsukioka said.

But Japanese refiners are studying measures to handle potential disruption to crude supply from the Middle East amid mounting tensions around the Straits of Hormuz, Tsukioka said, without giving any example of specific measures.
MRC

Vietnamese Dung Quat refinery to import more WTI crude in H2

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Vietnam’s Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical will import 2 million to 3 million barrels of US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude in the second half of this year for its Dung Quat refinery, reported Reuters with reference to a company executive's statement.

This will follow the import of the first ever batch of 1 million barrels of WTI crude oil in the first half of this year, Vice Chief Executive Officer Nguyen Van Hoi told Reuters.

Vietnam is seeking to import more goods from the United States to help narrow a favorable trade surplus following threats by US President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on products from the Southeast Asian nation amid a Sino-US trade war.

"Other than WTI crude, we will continue using Vietnam’s Bach Ho crude and imported crude oil from other sources in Asia for the refinery," Hoi said by telephone.

Vietnam has been relying more on imported crude due to a slowdown in domestic output as reserves decline at existing fields and China’s increasingly assertive stance in the region hampers offshore exploration.

Binh Son will shut down the refinery, which can process 130,000 barrels per day of crude oil, for 51 days starting from early June next year for a major maintenance, Hoi said.

This will be the fourth time the refinery in the central province of Quang Ngai has undergone major maintenance since it began commercial production 10 years ago.

The refinery operated at 106% of its design capacity in the first half of this year, producing 3.38 million tonnes of refined products, the company said.

Vietnam’s trade surplus with the United States widened to USD20.59 billion in the first half of this year from USD15.55 billion a year earlier, according to Vietnam’s official customs data.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade and the US Department of Energy will soon sign a memorandum of understanding on LNG imports, the government said in a statement late last month.

As MRC informed before, Vietnam's Dung Quat oil refinery planned to sell a 5%–6% stake in the company in the fourth quarter of 2017 via an initial public offering (IPO). The IPO was part of a government plan to sell state-owned enterprises including Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Co, which runs USD3 B Dung Quat. At that time, it was the sole refinery operating in the country.
MRC

Jiangsu Lvan Qingfeng completes maintenance at PS plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Jiangsu Lvan Qingfeng, has brought on-stream its polystyrene (PS) unit, following a maintenance turnaround, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China, informed that, the company has resumed operations at the unit, on July 24, 2019. The plant was shut for maintenance on July 7, 2019.

Located in Jiangsu, China, the plant has a production capacity of 150,000 mt/year.

We remind, as MRC informed before, Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical conducted maintenance at its PS plant in China from early-October to the fist week of December, 2018. Located in Shanghai, China, the PS plant has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.
MRC