Nizhnekamskneftekhim raises September PS prices for Ukraine

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nizhnekamskneftekhim (part of TAIF group) has announced an increase in its polystyrene (PS) prices for September shipments to Ukraine, according to the ICIS-MRC Price report.

Ukrainian buyers and traders said to MRC that quantities of Russian producer's material would be limited next month.

In August, Nizhnekamskneftekhim shipped general purpose polystyrene (GPPS) to the region at USD1,100/tonne FCA Nizhnekamsk, including VAT, and high impact polystyrene (HIPS) - at USD1,160/tonne FCA Nizhnekamsk, including VAT.

PJSC "Nizhnekamskneftekhim" (NKNK) - one of the largest Russian manufacturers of petrochemical products. The industrial complex of the company includes ten major production plants and ten departments (Railway Transport, Ethylene trunk, etc.). NKNKh produces more than 120 types of chemical products, including synthetic rubber, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, surfactants. Nizhnekamskneftekhim is a member of TAIF Group of Companies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Thailand’s PTTGC is planning to shut its LDPE unit in Map Ta Phut, Thailand for a planned turnaround from October 1 to 30, 2019, according to NCT with reference to sources close to the company.

The unit is able to produce 300,000 tons/year of LDPE.

PTT currently has a total capacity of 800,000 mt/year of high density polyethylene (HDPE), 300,000 mt/year of low density polyethylene and 800,000 mt/year of LLDPE at the same site.

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.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated LDPE consumption totalled 338,390 tonnes in the first seven months of 2019, up by 3% year on year. Some producers' LDPE output decreased, exports also subsided. Excessive supply of LDPE vanished in the market in August because of the shutdowns at two plants at once. And there was even a slight shortage already in the second half of the month.

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.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Haldor Topsoe, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, and GTM ONE have signed a licence agreement for the design, construction, and operation of a 3000 tpd methanol plant based on Topsoe’s SynCOR MethanolTM technology. The plant will be erected at the Khimprom site in Volgograd, Russia.

Topsoe will provide the licence, basic engineering, catalysts and proprietary hardware for methanol production. In the first stage, Topsoe will provide basic engineering for the process unit, and MHI Engineering will develop the front end engineering design (FEED) package for the site. At a later stage, the parties expect to sign an EPC contract. Construction is slated to begin in the second half of 2020.

“All technology customers are looking for well-proven and advanced technologies, high performance and low environmental impacts, high energy efficiency, and low CAPEX. In most cases, customers face a difficult choice of how to reach a compromise between these interests. We have selected Topsoe as the Topsoe SynCOR Methanol process is the ultimate uncompromised choice. We have found everything we need,” commented Osipov Alexander, Technical Director, GTM ONE.

“We are very pleased to offer a solution that not only helps our customers comply with environmental regulations, but also stands out as the most cost-effective in large-scale methanol production. We see increasing demand for this technology both in Russia and in other markets. We are also very content to continue our well-established cooperation with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering in Russia,” said Peter Vang Christensen, Managing Director of Haldor Topsoe's Moscow office.

SynCORTM solutions are industrially proven to deliver exceptional cost-efficiency, high availability, and low environmental impact in large-scale single train methanol production.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- QPSPP, Qatar Petroleum’s marketing arm, has executed a 5-year agreement to supply 6 million bbl of low-sulfur condensate to ExxonMobil Asia Pacific’s integrated manufacturing complex in Singapore, according to OGJ.

Qatar Petroleum for the Sale of Petroleum Products Co. (QPSPP), the marketing arm of Qatar Petroleum, has executed a 5-year agreement to supply 6 million bbl of low-sulfur condensate to ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.’s integrated manufacturing complex in Singapore, which has a crude oil processing capacity of 592,000 b/d and includes two steam crackers.

The 5-year sales agreement, which began in July, is the first condensate long-term sale to an end-user in Singapore, highlighting QPSPP’s push for more direct sales with established end users, QPSPP said.

Further details regarding the deal were not disclosed.

The long-term sales agreement follows a series of recently completed refining and upcoming petrochemical projects at ExxonMobil’s Singapore integrated manufacturing complex, the company’s largest.

As MRC informed 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.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PetroChina Co , Asia’s largest oil and gas producer, said on Thursday first half 2019 net profit rose 3.6% from a year earlier, driven up by increasing crude oil and natural gas sales, said Reuters.

For the first six months of 2019, the company earned 28.42 billion yuan ($4.01 billion), up from 27.44 trillion for the same period last year, PetroChina said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Total revenue for the state-backed company was 1.12 trillion yuan, up 6.8% from the same period in 2018.

Profit for the April to June quarter was 18.17 billion yuan, the highest since the third quarter last year, according to calculations by Reuters based on the earnings filing. That compares with 16.94 billion yuan in the same period a year earlier and 10.25 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year.

Over the first six months of 2019, PetroChina produced a total of 451.9 million barrels, or 2.5 million barrels per day, up 3.2% from the same period in 2018. While natural gas output increased 9.7% to 1.96 trillion cubic feet, or 55.5 billion cubic metres.

It also reported a 3.1% increase in crude oil throughput at its refineries to 597.4 million barrels, or 3.3 million barrels per day.

With Beijing’s push to boost domestic energy production, PetroChina invested 12.27 billion yuan in upstream exploration in the first half of 2019, 14% more compared to the same period last year.

Chinese energy companies have said they plan to raise spending on domestic drilling this year to the highest since 2016 to safeguard the country’s energy security.

PetroChina earlier this month started to drill its first shale oil well in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan and vowed to double natural gas output in the region to 50 billion cubic metres by 2025.
MRC