DSM appoints Shruti Singhal as head of engineering plastics

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal DSM has appointed chemical industry veteran Shruti Singhal as president of DSM Engineering Plastics, effective Oct. 1, 2019, said the company.

Singhal replaces outgoing president Roeland Polet, who is retiring in mid-2020 after having led the company since 2015.

Singhal joined Singapore-based DSM Engineering Plastics in July 2018 as managing director, global powder, can and coil and CMO at DSM Resins and Functional Materials. Prior to joining DSM, he served as senior vice president and president EMEA of General Cable. Earlier positions included stints with multinational companies including Henkel, Cognis (now BASF), Rohm & Haas, Dow Chemical Co., Ashland, and Solenis.

Singhal holds a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Drexel University, Philadelphia, and completed the Global Marketing Management Program at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

A division of science company Royal DSM, DSM Engineering Plastics offers polyamides, polyesters, nylon, polycarbonate, and extrudable adhesive resins products.

As MRC wrote earlier, in November 2017, Royal DSM announced a new approach for its additive manufacturing (AM) activities. By aligning all its AM activities within the Materials cluster and promoting a partnership approach, DSM can provide customers an open and flexible infrastructure. This will help customers to find exactly the right materials and production systems for their applications. The new customer-centric organization will build on experience and expertise from all of DSM’s existing materials businesses, combining deep market segment-specific application understanding and expertise in all polymer AM processing technology platforms.

Royal DSM is a global science-based company active in health, nutrition and materials. DSM delivers innovative solutions that nourish, protect and improve performance in global markets such as food and dietary supplements, personal care, feed, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, automotive, paints, electrical and electronics, life protection, alternative energy and bio-based materials.
MRC

PKN Orlen to boost petrochemicals production with Honeywell Technology

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell announced that PKN ORLEN has licensed the UOP MaxEne™ process, which can increase production of ethylene and aromatics and improve the flexibility of gasoline production, said the company.

The project, for the PKN ORLEN facility in Plock, Poland, currently is in the basic engineering stage. Honeywell UOP, a leading provider of technologies for the oil and gas industry, first commercialized the UOP MaxEne process in 2013. The process enables refiners and petrochemical producers to direct molecules within the naphtha feed to the processes that deliver the greatest value and improve yields of fuels and petrochemicals.

"PKN ORLEN seeks to extend its value chain toward high-margin products, which are increasingly in demand across global markets,” said Jozef Wegrecki, Member of the PKN ORLEN Management Board, Operations. “The MaxEne technology would allow us to better harness the potential of our refinery in Poland."

The MaxEne process separates full-range naphtha into a stream of normal paraffins which are ideal for steam crackers because they produce high yields of light olefins, and a second stream of isoparaffins, naphthenes and aromatics that are perfect for catalytic reforming units because they produce high yields of aromatics. Both products are the primary components of a wide variety of plastics.

"Since the cost of naphtha represents most of the production cost for most chemicals, we can improve the profitability of petrochemical operations by ensuring the right molecules go to the right processes,” said Bryan Glover, vice president and general manager of Honeywell UOP’s Petrochemicals & Refining Technologies business. “The UOP MaxEne technology is designed to improve molecule management and increase the production of light olefins by up to 30 percent, and the production of aromatics by as much as 12 percent."

By increasing the production of light olefins such as ethylene and propylene, the MaxEne process can substantially improve the profitability of existing naphtha cracking units. It also can increase yields of aromatics which can be used for petrochemical production – including paraxylene -- and gasoline blending components.

As MRC informed earlier, Total has sold a cargo of contaminated Russian Urals oil to Poland’s PKN Orlen for its refinery in Lithuania/

PKN ORLEN would be the first refining and petrochemicals company in Europe to use the Honeywell UOP MaxEne technology for molecule management of a naphtha stream to produce high-quality products including olefins, aromatics and gasoline.
MRC

Massive flare at refinery caused by power cut

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Several units at Essar’s 200,000 barrel per day Stanlow refinery in northwest England were shut down following a power outage, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to a spokesman for the plant.

"Earlier this morning the power supply... to Stanlow from the national grid failed. This has resulted in the shutdown of a number of units on site," the spokesman said in a statement.

The unplanned shutdown at the plant resulted in visible flaring. It was unclear how long the outage would last.

As MRC informed earlier, in April 2017, the purchase of Indian refiner Essar Oil by a consortium led by Russian oil company Rosneft was delayed, because some Indian lenders to Essar had not signed off on the deal. The USD12.9 B deal, in which Rosneft is set to take a 49% stake in Essar and another 49% will be split between commodities trader Trafigura and Russian investor United Capital Partners (UCP), was expected to close that month. Eventually, the deal was closed in August, 2017.
MRC

Tanker ship traffic to and from major refineries blocked amid protests

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The US Coast Guard closed the upper Houston Ship Channel as 11 Greenpeace USA protesters blocked a portion of the country’s largest oil port near Baytown, Texas, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to the agency's statement.

The channel is closed from Light 102A to Light 104, the Coast Guard said in a notice.

The closure of the Ship Channel at that location blocks tanker ship traffic to and from five major refineries in the Houston area, including Exxon Mobil Corp’s 560,500-barrel-per-day refinery in Baytown, which is 26 miles (42 km) east of downtown Houston.

One ship was waiting to enter the Ship Channel, which links the Gulf of Mexico and the Port of Houston, the nation’s busiest petrochemical port, and two ships were waiting to exit the waterway, the Coast Guard said.

Ship traffic to Texas City, Texas, where two refineries and several chemical plants are located, was not affected by the closure on the upper Ship Channel.

Affected by the shutdown were also Valero Energy Corp’s 205,000-bpd Houston refinery, LyondellBasell’s 263,776-bpd Houston refinery, Chevron Corp’s 112,229-bpd Pasadena, Texas, refinery and Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s 340,000-bpd Deer Park, Texas, refinery.

All of the refineries are able to ship out products via pipelines and most have enough crude on hand to continue operating at maximum capacity for several days.

The Houston Ship Channel stretches 53 miles (85 km) from its entrance in the Gulf of Mexico to the Port of Houston.
MRC

MRPL postpones restart of its PP plant in Mangalore until the 3rd week of September

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), is likely to keep its polypropylene (PP) plant off-line, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source informed that, the company has delayed the restart of the plant, until the third week of September, 2019.

The plant was shut on August 9, 2019, owing to a landslide near the pipeline area, thus damaging the pipeline. Earlier, the plant was supposed to resume operations by end-August, 2019.

Located at Mangalore, Karnataka, the plant has a PP production capacity of 440,000 mt/year.

We also remind that the company shut this plant for maintenance from mid-April to early July, 2019.

As MRC wrote before, in June 2015, MRPL successfully commenced commercial production of PP from its polypropylene plant as part of its phase-III refinery expansion and upgradation project in Mangaluru. The plant has a capacity to produce 440,000 tonnes of PP per annum. Feedstock for the PP plant - polymer grade propylene - is being produced from upstream petrochemical fluidised catalytic cracking unit of the refinery. Technology provider for the PP plant is Novolen of Germany. The plant has been engineered and constructed by Engineers India Ltd.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, the estimated consumption of PP in the Russian market totalled 694,210 tonnes in January-June 2019, up by 14% year on year. The supply of propylene block copolymers (PP-block) and propylene homopolymers (PP-homo) increased.

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL), is an oil refinery at Mangalore and is a subsidiary of ONGC, set up in 1993. The refinery is located at Katipalla, north from centre of Mangalore city. The refinery was established after displacing five villages of Bala, Kalavar, Kuthetoor, Katipalla, and Adyapadi.
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