Shell operates its refinery in Deer Park normally amid tropical storm

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s 340,000 bpd joint-venture Deer Park, Texas, refinery had no problems overnight and restarted a distillate hydrotreater, reported Reuters with reference to sources familiar with plant operations.

Refineries in the Houston area remained in operation through the first night of Tropical Storm Imelda’s passage across southeast Texas on 18 September, sources familiar with plant operations said on Wednesday.

Imelda, downgraded to a tropical depression, was slowly moving north with its center located in Houston’s northwestern suburbs, but the storm was dumping rain as far east as Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Eight refineries in Houston, Texas City and Sweeny can process a combined 2.5 million bpd of crude oil, equal to 13.6% of national refining capacity.

As MRC wrote before, operations were stable last Thursday morning at Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s 340,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) joint-venture refinery in Deer Park, Texas, after the upper Houston Ship Channel was closed by protesters from Greenpeace USA. The Deer Park refinery is a 50-50 joint-venture between Shell and Mexico’s national oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Shell is the managing partner of the joint-venture. Shell has three crackers at Deer Park site with a combined ethylene capacity of 1,67 mln per year and petrochemical plants.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,255,800 tonnes in the first seven months of 2019, up by 9% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, the estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 796,120 tonnes in January-July 2019, up by 11% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A major fire broke out at the naphtha cracker unit of the Haldia Petrochemicals Limited here on Friday injuring 15 people, reported The Times of India with reference to a senior police officer's statement.

The blaze that broke out at 11.15 am, was yet to be brought under control, Purba Medinipur Superintendent of Police V Solomon Nesakumar said.

The injured have been rushed to a nearby hospital, he said.

The condition of three of the injured is "very serious", while the rest have suffered "moderate burns" the SP said.
Some of the injured were being brought to Kolkata for treatment, he said.

The police officer could not say whether workers are trapped inside the unit.
District Magistrate Partha Ghosh said, "I am not aware of the incident. I am busy with other things."

As MRC informed before, Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) resumed production at its cracker and downstream plants following a maintenance turnaround on 9-10 June, 2018. The complex was shut on May 10, 2018 for a period of about 20-25 days. Located at Haldia in the eastern Indian state of west Bengal, the complex can produce 700,000 mt/year of ethylene and 350,000 mt/year of propylene and provides feedstock to a 330,000 mt/year high density PE plant, a 370,000 mt/year HDPE/linear low PE swing plant and a 350,000 mt/year polypropylene unit.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,255,800 tonnes in the first seven months of 2019, up by 9% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, the estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 796,120 tonnes in January-July 2019, up by 11% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.

Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd is a modern naphtha based petrochemical complex at Haldia, West Bengal, India. Haldia has played the role of a catalyst in emergence of more than 500 downstream processing industries in West Bengal with a capacity to process more than 3,50,000 TPA of polymers, among which are polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP)

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Tosoh Corporation has shut its vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) unit for an unscheduled turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed that the company took off-stream this plant on September 9, 2019, because of a technical issue. The plant is likely to resume its production after two weeks from its shutdown.

Located in Yokkaichi, Japan, the VCM unit has a production capacity of 250,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, Tosoh shut its No.1 VCM plant in Nanyo for a maintenance turnaround on October 17, 2018. The plant remained under maintenance until early-December 2018. Located in Nanyo, Japan, the No.1 VCM plant has a production capacity of 250,000 mt/year.

VCM is a feedstock for the production on polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

According to MRC's DataScope report, Imports of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) into Russia totalled 130,100 tonnes in the first eight months of 2019, up by 55% year on year. Imports also increased by 174% year on year to 36,900 tonnes.

The Tosoh Group comprises over 100 companies worldwide with over 12,000 employees and net sales of JPY 743.0 billion (USD 6.9 billion) in fiscal 2017. The group is one of the largest chlor-alkali manufacturers in Asia. Tosoh’s petrochemical operations supply ethylene, polyethylene, and functional polymers, while its advanced materials business serves the global semiconductor, display, and solar industries.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BP Plc began a planned overhaul of the small gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) at its 430,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Whiting, Indiana, refinery, said sources familiar with plant operations, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

BP is continuing to increase production levels on the large crude distillation unit (CDU) at the refinery on Wednesday, but will not run the 240,000 Pipestill CDU at full capacity, while the 65,000 bpd FCCU 600 is shut for the overhaul, the sources said.

As MRC informed previously, in November 2018, BP Plc’s trading arm entered a tolling agreement with the owners of an idled oil refinery in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, cementing plans to bring the plant back online six years after it was idled by previous owners. Under BP’s tolling agreement with Limetree Bay Refining LLC, owner of the idled Hovensa refinery, BP will supply the facility with crude and sell its products, low-sulfur fuels that will meet an International Maritime Organization mandate in 2020.

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.

BP is one of the world's leading international oil and gas companies, providing its customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, retail services and petrochemicals products for everyday items.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia's output of chemical products dropped in August 2018 by 3.7% month on month.
Production of basic chemicals increased by 3.4% in the first eight months of 2019, according to Rosstat's data.

According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, the largest increase in production volumes on an annualized basis accounted for mineral fertilizers and polymers in primary form. Thus, 255 ,000 tonnes of ethylene were produced in August, compared to 233,000 tonnes a month earlier. Angarsk Polymers Plant and Gazprom neftekhim Salavat shut down their production capacities for maintenance in July. Thus, 2,056,000 tonnes of this olefin were produced in January-August 2019, up by 2.5% year on year.

Benzene production in August amounted to 117,000 tonnes against 108,000 tonnes a month earlier, which was also a result of the shutdowns in Angarsk and Salavat. Overall output of this product reached 968,000 tonnes in the first eight months of 2019, up by 0.5% year on year.

August production of sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) were 111,000 tonnes (100% of the basic substance) versus 97,900 tonnes a month earlier. SayanskKhimPlast and Bashkir Soda Company shut their capacities for scheduled maintenances in July. Overall output of caustic soda totalled 853,900 tonnes over the stated period, compared to 844,500 tonnes a year earlier.

1,939,000 tonnes of mineral fertilizers (in terms of 100% nutrients) were produced in August versus 1,99 mln tonnes a month earlier. Overall, Russian plants produced 16,253,000 tonnes of fertilizers in January-August 2019, up by 3.7% year on year.

Last month's production of polymers in primary form decreased to 734,000 tonnes, up 6.5% from July due to scheduled maintenance works of several manufacturers. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 5,668,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by only 3.4% year on year.
MRC