Saudi Aramco continues growth with Texas acquisition

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Motiva Enterprises LLC is acquiring a materials production site from Flint Hills Resources Port Arthur LLC for an undisclosed price, said Plasticseurope.

Motiva is a unit of global energy giant Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco. The site in Port Arthur, Texas, includes production of plastics feedstocks ethylene, propylene and cyclohexane. Officials said in an 19 Aug news release that the acquisition is set to close in the fourth quarter of 2019. Flint Hills retains its other operations.

"This marks the entry of Motiva into the chemical industry," Patrick Kirby, Wood Mackenzie Principal Analyst, said in an emailed statement. "The steam cracker, which can handle a range of feedstocks — including ethane and those form the refinery — forms an integral part of the transaction. The steam cracker primarily produces ethylene and propylene for the merchant market.

"It remains unclear as to what Motiva has planned post-acquisition, however some options could include strengthening refinery-chemicals integration, expansion of the asset capacity or potentially longer-term derivative plant development. The company has also expressed plans for further chemical developments at Port Arthur, including a world-scale steam cracker and aromatics facility," Kirby said.

Houston-based Motiva already operates a refinery in Port Arthur. The firm formed in 1998 as a joint venture between Saudi Aramco of Riyadh and Royal Dutch Shell plc of London. Aramco bought out Shell's part of the JV in 2017.

State-owned Saudi Aramco is one of the world's largest petrochemical companies, with 2018 sales of almost USD356bn (EUR320bn). The firm has been active on the acquisitions front this year. Earlier this month, it announced plans to invest USD15bn (EUR13.5bn) to acquire a 20% stake in a Reliance Industries Ltd. unit that includes one of the world's largest polypropylene businesses.

In March, Aramco paid a little more than USD69bn (EUR61bn) for a 70% stake in global commodity and engineering resins supplier Saudi Basic Industries Corp. Saudi Aramco also has partnered with Dow Inc. on the Sadara plastics and petrochemicals joint venture in Saudi Arabia.

Flint Hills is owned by industrial conglomerate Koch Industries Inc. The firm's other petrochemical products include PP resin, which it makes at a plant in Longview, Texas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, has announced the successful startup of its CATOFIN catalyst at Hengli Group’s new mixed-feed dehydrogenation plant in Dalian, China, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The new unit combines propane dehydrogenation (PDH) with iso-butane dehydrogenation (BDH) process technologies, and it will produce over 1 million tons of olefins per year -- becoming the world’s largest plant using CATOFIN catalyst technology.

The state-of-the-art process pairs Clariant’s CATOFIN catalyst together with McDermott’s Lummus process technology and is proven to enable high reliability and yields, cost efficiency and simplicity. In addition to the CATOFIN catalyst, the facility is using Clariant’s innovative Heat Generating Material (HGM) to produce its on-purpose olefins.

Founded in 1994, Hengli Group is one of China’s foremost suppliers of petrochemicals. Hengli Group’s new dehydrogenation plant in Dalian, China is designed to process 500 KTA of propane and 800 KTA of iso-butane feeds to produce propylene and iso-butylene.

Guangqin Peng, Chief Engineer of Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery Co Ltd, stated, "We are very proud of our achievements on this groundbreaking project. The fast, smooth and successful startup of this world’s largest paraffin dehydrogenation unit would not have been possible without reliable and experienced partners like Clariant."

CATOFIN is an extremely reliable technology for light paraffin dehydrogenation. Operating at thermodynamically-advantaged reactor pressure and temperature to maximize yield, the process relies on Clariant’s highly selective CATOFIN catalyst and the company’s patented metal-oxide HGM to deliver high conversion rates. With the successful startup of the Hengli plant, this now marks Clariant’s 21st CATOFIN unit in operation, totaling over 9 million tons of olefin production capacity globally.

Stefan Heuser, Senior Vice President & General Manager Business Unit Catalysts at Clariant, added, "We are honored that our CATOFIN catalysts and Heat Generating Material were selected by Hengli for its new production facility. Together with our technology partner, McDermott’s Lummus Technology, we are proving, yet again, the outstanding benefits of CATOFIN for propane and iso-butane dehydrogenation."

As MRC wrote earlier, in March 2017, Clariant was awarded a contract by Dongguan Grand Resource Science & Technology Co. Ltd. to develop a new propane dehydrogenation unit in cooperation with CB&I. The project includes the license and engineering design of the unit, which is to be built in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, China. The Dongguan plant will be one of the largest single-train dehydrogenation units in the world. Clariant's technology partner CB&I will base the plant's design on its Catofin® catalytic dehydrogenation technology, which uses Clariant's tailor-made Catofin catalyst and Heat Generating Material (HGM).

Clariant AG is a Swiss chemical company and a world leader in the production of specialty chemicals for the textile, printing, mining and metallurgical industries. It is engaged in processing crude oil products in pigments, plastics and paints. Clariant India has local masterbatch production activities at Rania, Kalol and Nandesari (Gujarat) and Vashere (Maharashtra) sites in India.

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Aramco has formally asked major banks to submit proposals for potential roles in its planned initial public offering, reproted Reuters with reference to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Aramco’s planned IPO, which could potentially raise USD100 billion, is the centerpiece of Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation drive to attract foreign investment and diversify away from oil.

Request for proposals were sent to banks few days day ago, they said.

Aramco declined to comment.

The formal IPO process begins after Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had said in June the government remained fully committed to the IPO, expecting it to take place between 2020 and early 2021.

His comments triggered a series of approaches by international investment banks which wanted to be involved, Reuters had reported citing sources.

Work on the deal was halted in 2018 when Aramco began a process to acquire a 70% stake in petrochemicals maker Saudi Basic Industries Corp.

The IPO process could formalize roles for some of the banks that had been previously working on the transaction, one of the sources said.

Before the IPO process was halted, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and HSBC were picked to play a leading role in the world’s biggest ever IPO when the plan was first announced in 2016.

Boutique investment banks Moelis & Co and Evercore were also hired by Aramco as independent advisers, sources had said at that time.

As MRC informed previously, in mid-August 2019, Saudi Aramco unveiled a USD15 billion deal to expand its global refining footprint and held its first-ever earnings call with financial analysts, twin moves that could bolster investor confidence as the state-owned oil giant revs up plans to list shares.

Saudi Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a Saudi Arabian national oil and natural gas company based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco"s value has been estimated at up to USD10 trillion in the Financial Times, making it the world"s most valuable company. Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 260 billion barrels, and largest daily oil production.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Fujian Hongrun has brought on-stream its polystyrene (PS) unit following a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has resumed operations at the unit on August 22, 2019. The plant remained under maintenance for about seven weeks.

Located in Quanzhou, Fujian, China, the plant has a production capacity of 60,000 mt/year.

We remind that, as MRC informed before, Jiangsu Lvan Qingfeng has brought on-stream its PS unit, following a maintenance turnaround. The company 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.
MRC