Lyondell Houston refinery small CDU raised production to full capacity

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lyondell Basell Industries was raising the production level of the small crude distillation unit (CDU) at its 263,776 barrel-per-day Houston refinery on 11 October, which was shut earlier in the day, reported Reuters with reference to Gulf Coast market sources.

The 120,000 bpd Unit 536 CDU was shut at midday on Friday after water was found in the crude being processed in the unit, the sources said.

It was approximately midday Saturday before the unit returned to full production, according to the sources.

CDUs do the primary refining of crude oil into hydrocarbon feedstocks for all other production units in a refinery to convert into motor fuels.

As MRC wrote previously, in August 2016, LyondellBasell made the final investment decision to build a high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant on the US Gulf Coast. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1.1 billion pounds (500,000 metric tons) and will be the first commercial plant to employ LyondellBasell's new proprietary Hyperzone PE technology. The start-up of the new plant is scheduled for 2019.

According to ICIS-MRC Price report, Russia's two largest HDPE producers - Kazanorgsintez and Stavrolen - have resumed their operations after long maintenance works. The plants' customers said Kazanorgsintez and Stavrolen had completely resumed their HDPE production by Monday, 21 October, after the shutdown for turnarounds. The outages were planned and began on 6 September and 26 September, respectively. These are the last scheduled turnarounds at Russian plants this year.

LyondellBasell is one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world. Driven by its 13,000 employees around the globe, LyondellBasell produces materials and products that are key to advancing solutions to modern challenges like enhancing food safety through lightweight and flexible packaging, protecting the purity of water supplies through stronger and more versatile pipes, and improving the safety, comfort and fuel efficiency of many of the cars and trucks on the road. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics Corp. (part of Formosa Petrochemical) has agreed to pay USD50 million to settle allegations that a company plant in Texas spilled tons of pellets into waterways near the Gulf of Mexico, reported CityNews.

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid announced the agreement involving the Formosa plant in Point Comfort last Tuesday. A judge in Houston will consider approving the settlement, to be paid over five years into a fund supporting environmental water projects.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt in June ruled in favour of people who alleged the Formosa plant violated clean water laws through discharges into Lavaca Bay and Cox Creek that began in 2016.

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, representing plaintiffs, said the consent decree means Formosa agrees to "zero discharge" of plastics and will clean existing pollution.

A message left for Formosa wasn’t immediately returned Tuesday.

As MRC informed earlier, Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics has taken off-stream its polypropylene (PP) unit owing to technical glitch. A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company halted operations at the unit in end-September, 2019. The unit remained off-line until mid-October, 2019. Located at Ningbo in China, the No. 2 PP unit has a production capacity of 280,000 mt/year.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, 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.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company"s plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Overall imports of Covestro's PC granules to the Ukrainian market grew in the first three quarters of 2019 by 52% year on year, according to MRC's DataScope report.

Thus, this figure increased from 1,400 tonnes in January-September 2018 to 2,100 tonnes.

Covestro's material accounted for 69% of the total PC imports to the country in the first nine months of 2019 versus 54% a year earlier.

Company's shipments of material to Ukraine were 231 tonnes last months, compared to 139 tonnes in September 2018.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Overall imports of PC granules to the Ukrainian market grew in the first three quarters of 2019 by 19% year on year to 3,000 tonnes, according to MRC's DataScope report.

This figure was at 2,500 tonnes in January-September 2018.

In terms of technology, the share of injection moulding PC grades decreased to 51% (1,500 tonnes) for this period from 64% (1,600 tonnes) a year earlier. The share of extrusion grade PC rose from 15% (400 tonnes) of the total imports to 30% (900 tonnes), whereas the share of blow moulding PC grades dropped slightly from 21% (500 tonnes) 20% (600 tonnes).

Last month's imports of PC granules to the Ukrainian market grew by 50% year on year: from 273 tonnes to 410 tonnes in September 2018.

August shipments of material were 383 tonnes.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia's two largest producers of high density polyethylene (HDPE) - Kazanorgsintez and Stavrolen - have resumed their operations after long maintenance works, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The plants' customers said Kazanorgsintez and Stavrolen had completely resumed their HDPE production by Monday, 21 October, after the shutdown for turnarounds. The outages were planned and began on 6 September and 26 September, respectively. These are the last scheduled turnarounds at Russian plants this year.

PJSC "Kazanorgsintez" (part of TAIF Group) is one of Russia's largest plants. Kazanorgsintez produces 40% of overall Russian polyethylene (PE) and is the country's largest exporter. To date, the plant produces PE, polycarbonate (PC), PE pipes, phenol, acetone, bisphenol A. Kazanorgsintez is Russia's only PC producer. It manufactures a total of 170 items of products. Kazanorgsintez's annual output is 1.6 million tonnes. The plant's annual HDPE production capacity is 540,000 tonnes, its output totalled 401,500 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 1% year on year.

Stavrolen's (part of Lukoil) HDPE production capacity is 300,000 tonnes. The plant's overall HDPE output exceeded 214,200 tonnes in January-September 2019, down by 4% year on year.
MRC