ADNOC wants Italian ENI and Austrian OMV to take stake in refinery expansion

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s (ADNOC) wants to partner Italy’s Eni and Austria’s OMV for expansion of refining capacity to 1.5 million barrels per day, reported Reuters with reference to a company executive's statement.

ADNOC has a total refining capacity of 922,000 barrels per day (bpd) including a 85,000 bpd refinery near the Abu Dhabi city.

The state energy company plans to double its refining capacity and triple petrochemicals output potential by 2025, as it focuses more on downstream expansion to capture new growth markets.

As MRC wrote before, a USD3.1 billion project to introduce crude processing flexibility, at ADNOC owned Ruwais oil refinery, was announced in February 2018. Known as the Crude Flexibility Project (CFP), the announcement was another significant step forward as ADNOC accelerates delivery of its Downstream refining strategy that aims to enhance margins by introducing asset flexibility, backed by strong crude and product marketing initiatives.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,436,390 tonnes in the first eight months of 2019, up by 9% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, the PP consumption in the Russian market was 909,260 tonnes in January-August 2019, up by 10% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.
MRC

Ineos Styrolution GPPS imports to Russia rose significantly in September

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Ineos Styrolution's general purpose polystyrene (GPPS) imports into Russia increased in September by 4 times year on year to 1,500 tonnes, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

This figure was 340 tonnes in September 2018.

Ineos Styrolution is the largest GPPS supplier to Russia.

European material accounted for 47% of the total GPPS shipments onver the stated period versus 40% in September 2018.

Styrolution's GPPS shipments to the Russian market more than doubled in the first three quarters of 2019, totalling 9,900 tonnes, compared to 4,200 tonnes a year earlier.
MRC

Sabic to invest in methanol plant in Russian Far East

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sabic (Saudi Basic Industries Corporation) has signed a preliminary agreement with the state-controlled Russian Direct Investment Fund and Moscow-based ESN Group for a potential investment in a methanol plant in the Russian Far East, as the Middle East’s biggest petrochemicals producer looks to expand its international footprint, reported Kemicalinfo.

The agreement, part of a broad range of pacts signed during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Saudi Arabia on Monday, will explore the option to build and operate a methanol plant with a capacity of a 2 million tonnes per annum in Russia’s Amur region.

Yousef Al-Benyan, SABIC vice chairman and CEO, commented: "This is an important milestone in our global growth strategy. Russia is important to our global expansion plans, which have been formulated around competitive feedstock and our capacity to innovate and plan strategically. We plan to maintain our strategic partnership with the Russian market by continuing to focus on meeting customer needs, increasing our key customer base, and growing our commercial operation, in addition to enhancing our presence in the Russian market and maintain our leading position as a key methanol supplier."

In January, Sabic signed a preliminary agreement with South Louisiana Methanol to explore the possibility of developing a chemicals plant in the US to profit from the surging North American shale gas production.

It also increased its stake in Arrazi Methanol Company after purchasing Japan Saudi Arabia Methanol Company’s 50 per cent interest for USD150 million in December.

Investment in the downstream segment of the energy value chain has become a priority for Middle East oil producers, as they hope to earn revenues from the sale of higher value products.

As MRC wrote before, SABIC took off-stream its SABIC Olefins 4 cracker owing to technical issues on May 10, 2019. Further details on duration of the shutdown could not be ascertained. Located in beek, the Netherlands, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 690,000 mt/year and a propylene production capacity of 360,000 mt/year.

Besides, in the first week of September 2019, SABIC Europe, an affiliate of SABIC, started maintenance work at its cracker No.3 at Geleen site in the Netherlands. The planned maintenance is slated to last around 2 months. The company operates two steam crackers in Geleen which are capable of producing 1,250,000 tons/year of ethylene and 675,000 tons/year of propylene in total.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,436,390 tonnes in the first eight months of 2019, up by 9% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, the PP consumption in the Russian market was 909,260 tonnes in January-August 2019, up by 10% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the worldпїЅs market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
MRC

Stavrolen resumed PP production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Stavrolen, Russia's major polyolefins producer, has resumed its polypropylene (PP) production in Budennovsk after a long scheduled turnaround, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The plant's customers said Stavrolen had fully resumed its PP production after the long scheduled maintenance by 15 October. The outage began on 6 September. The start-up of the plant's high density polyethylene (HDPE) production will take place with a week delay.

It is also worth noting that Kazanorgsintez intends to resume its HDPE production after a scheduled turnaround, which began on 14 September, by 20 October. The plant's overall annual capacity is 540,000 tonnes.

Stavrolen's (part of Lukoil) annual capacity of PP and HDPE production is 120,000 and 300,000 tonnes, respectively. The plant's output of propylene polymers and HDPE exceeded 78,600 tonnes and 210,800 tonnes, respectively, in the first eight months of 2019.
MRC

Shell restarts Norco, Louisiana, refinery hydrocracker

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc restarted the hydrocracker at its 225,300 barrel-per-day (bpd) Norco, Louisiana, refinery, reported Reuters with reference to sources familiar with plant operations.

The 40,000 bpd hydrocracker was shut on Sept. 9 for a planned month-long overhaul. A longer than expected restart of the unit stretched the outage to six weeks, the sources said.

As MRC informed before, operations were stable on 13 September 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 1,436,390 tonnes in the first eight months of 2019, up by 9% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, the PP consumption in the Russian market was 909,260 tonnes in January-August 2019, up by 10% 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