ExxonMobil shuts Beaumont, Texas chemical plant: company

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil Corp shut the chemical plant at its Beaumont, Texas, refining and petrochemical complex on Thursday morning, 19 September, because of flooding from Tropical Storm Imelda, reported Reuters with reference to company spokesman Jeremy Eikenberry's statement.

Sources familiar with plant operations told Reuters on Thursday that Exxon was preparing to shut the 369,024 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery adjoining the chemical plant because of flooding.

The company operates a cracker with a capacity of 830,000 mt of ethylene and 195,000 mt of proplyelen per year, low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant with a capacity of 236,000 mt per year and linear low density polyethylene plant with a capacity of 727,000 tonnes per year.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polyprolypele (PP).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption was 1,081,100 tonnes in the first half of 2019, up by 8% year on year. Deliveries of all PE grades increased. Meanwhile, 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.

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) -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet executives from energy majors BP PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp in the United States this week to discuss investment opportunities, reported Reuters with reference to the foreign ministry's statement on Thursday.

The energy hungry nation, which has been increasing imports of crude from the United States, is looking at raising oil imports from Russia, amid uncertainty over supplies after an attack on Saudi Arabian facilities last weekend.

Modi will also attend a separate investment event with executives from JPMorgan Chase & Co, Lockheed Martin, Mastercard Inc and Walmart Inc, foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale said.

As MRC wrote before, an attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities has caused the biggest supply disruption in absolute terms in the last five decades, as per International Energy Agency figures. Saturday's attack will cut the kingdom's output by 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd), according to a statement from state-run oil company Saudi Aramco. It is not yet known how long it will take to restart the production.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, experienced an emergency incident at approximately 12:00 noon Central time on Saturday, Sept. 21, at the Celanese Clear Lake facility in Pasadena, Texas, said the producer on its site.

On-site emergency personnel extinguished the fire quickly, and appropriate regulatory and first responder agencies were notified and mobilized at the scene to support the incident. All Celanese, site partner and contractor employees are accounted for and no injuries were reported. No shelter in place was issued, and the emergency was cleared at 4:30 p.m. local time. The cause of the incident is being investigated.

At this time, Celanese unit operations including acetic acid and monomer vinyl acetate (VAM) with a capacity of 450,000 per year are down. The Fairway methanol unit is also idle.

Shipping operations at Clear Lake and associated terminals are expected to continue without interruption. Celanese will leverage its global network capabilities to service contract customers. Site restart efforts are underway.

According to MRC's DataScope report, July EVA imports to Russia increased by 4% year on year to 3,490 tonnes from 3,350 tonnes in July 2018, and overall imports of this grade of ethylene copolymer into the Russian Federation decreased in January-July 2019 by 14, 3% year on year to 22,440 tonnes (26,170 tonnes in the first seven months of 2018).

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,700 employees worldwide and had 2018 net sales of USD7.2 billion.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indonesia's state oil and gas company PT Pertamina said it had stopped an underwater leak from an oil well off West Java over the weekend after more than two months of spillages, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The company aims to permanently plug the leak next week, but the clean-up effort for beaches nearby is expected to last until at least March next year.

The spill, from the YYA-1 well in Pertamina's Offshore North West Java (ONWJ) block, started on July 12 and was declared an emergency three days later. An environmental group said the spill has affected at least 13 villages, threatening the livelihoods and health of thousands of people.

On Monday, Dharmawan Samsu, Pertamina's upstream director, told reporters that Pertamina had connected a relief well, which should contain the leak, and aimed to permanently plug the leaking well by Oct. 1.

"With this completion, we can soon focus on recovery efforts for the affected area," he said. "We will renovate public infrastructure and clean the environment to restore the ecosystem."

More than 42,000 barrels of oil have been recovered offshore since the spill, Taufik Adityawarman, a Pertamina official said, as well as 5.7 million bags of mixed sand and oil from beaches.

Pertamina has promised to compensate residents affected by the spill, mostly fishermen from villages near the well. Adityawarman said so far only 30% of the compensation money has been distributed.

The company has estimated output from the ONWJ block this year of 29,000-30,000 barrels of oil per day and 110 million standard cubic feet of natural gasper day.

As it was said earlier, PT Pertamina will sign an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to upgrade Balikpapan refinery in December.

Pertamina is an Indonesian state-owned oil and natural gas corporation based in Jakarta. It was created in August 1968 by the merger of Pertamin (established 1961) and Permina (established 1957). Pertamina is the world's largest producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Gasoline exports from Europe to the Middle East and Asia are set to surge this week after recent attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities crippled output at the kingdom's refineries, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Over 400,000 tonnes of gasoline and gasoline blending components have been booked in the past week for loading between Sept. 21 and Sept 26 out of northwest Europe with Mideast Gulf delivery options, shipping data shows. The flow is the equivalent of around 500,000 barrels per day.

It is unclear where the cargoes will end up, but traders said that Saudi Arabia's state-run oil company Aramco is seeking to buy large volumes of refined oil products.

Europe's exports of gasoline and blending components to Saudi Arabia averaged 60,000 bpd in the first five months of the year, according to data analytics firm Vortexa.

"A flurry of gasoline bookings that emerged this week for Europe to Middle East voyages could see more European gasoline make its way to Saudi Arabia," Vortexa said in a note.

Traders said the rise in shipping bookings was related to a sharp increase in demand following attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure on Sept. 14, which knocked out around 1 million bpd of Saudi Arabia's refining capacity.

As it was written earlier, gasoline exports from Europe to the U.S. East Coast rose sharply in early July after a fire at a major refinery in Philadelphia left a supply shortage in the densely populated region/
MRC