Sasol to restart its cracker in Lake Charles, Louisiana in late December

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petrochemical producer Sasol's ethane cracker in Lake Charles, Louisiana, will restart from planned maintenance work in the latter part of December, a spokeswoman for the company said in an email to S&P Global.

"On November 30, we shut down the LCCP ethane cracker to begin replacing its acetylene reactor catalysts, as we announced in October," the spokeswoman said.

The unit is expected to have a nameplate capacity of 1.5 million mt/year in 2020, according to the company's website.

The maintenance began November 30.

As MRC wrote before, Sasol announced that its world-scale US ethane cracker reached beneficial operation on 27 August 2019. Sasol’s new cracker, the heart of its Lake Charles Chemicals Project (LCCP), is the third and most significant of the seven LCCP facilities to come online and will provide feedstock to our six new derivative units at the company's Lake Charles multi-asset site.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,724,670 tonnes in the first ten months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market in January-October 2019 totalled 1,066,520 tonnes, up by 7% year on year. Supply of block copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymer) and homopolymer of propylene (homopolymer PP) increased, demand for statistical copolymers (PP random copolymer) decreased.

Sasol is an international integrated chemicals and energy company that leverages technologies and the expertise of our 31 270 people working in 32 countries. The company develops and commercialises technologies, and builds and operates world-scale facilities to produce a range of high-value product stream, including liquid fuels, petrochemicals and low-carbon electricity.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell announced today that Shandong Binhua New Material Co., Ltd. will use Honeywell UOP’s C3 Oleflex technology to produce 600,000 metric tons per year of polymer-grade propylene for a proposed plant in China, as per the company's press release.

Honeywell UOP, a leading technology provider for the oil and gas industry, will provide services, equipment, catalysts and adsorbents for the Shandong plant. The project marks the 25th award for C3 Oleflex technology in China, which has seen exponential growth and demand for propylene, a key plastics ingredient.

Since 2011, most dehydrogenation projects globally have been based on UOP technology, including projects for propane (C3), isobutane (iC4) and mixed C3/ iC4 service. Global production capacity of propylene from Oleflex technology currently stands at approximately 7.8 million metric tons per year.

"The increasing consumption of plastics globally has generated substantial demand for propylene," said Bryan Glover, vice president and general manager, Honeywell UOP’s Petrochemicals and Refining Technologies. "Our Oleflex technology will help Shandong Binhua, a regional leader in propylene oxide production, meet the demand for propylene derivatives in China by creating a consistent supply of on-purpose propylene."

Honeywell UOP’s C3 Oleflex technology uses catalytic dehydrogenation to convert propane to propylene and is designed to have a lower cash cost of production and higher return on investment compared to competing dehydrogenation technologies. Oleflex’s low-energy consumption, low-emissions and fully recyclable, platinum-alumina-based catalyst system also helps minimize impact on the environment. The independent reactor and regeneration design helps maximize operating flexibility and onstream reliability.

Shandong Binhua New Material Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of Befar Group Co., Ltd. Located in Binzhou in Shandong Province, Befar has more than 50 years of experience in caustic soda and propylene oxide production, and is one of China’s most influential oil additive suppliers.

As MRC informed earlier, in September 2019, Honeywell announced that Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical Co., Ltd. is using Honeywell UOP’s C3 OleflexTM technology to produce 450 000 tpy of polymer-grade propylene for a new petrochemicals complex in China. This is the second C3 Oleflex unit now operating with Satellite. Honeywell UOP delivered Satellite’s first Oleflex unit in 2014.

Propylene is the main feedstock for producing polyprolypele (PP).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, the estimated PP consumption in the Russian market in January-October 2019 totalled 1,066,520 tonnes, up by 7% year on year. Supply of block copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymer) and homopolymer of propylene (homopolymer PP) increased, demand for statistical copolymers (PP random copolymer) decreased.

Honeywell UOP is a leading international supplier and licensor of process technology, catalysts, adsorbents, equipment, and consulting services to the petroleum refining, petrochemical, and gas processing industries. Honeywell UOP is part of Honeywell’s Performance Materials and Technologies strategic business group, which also includes Honeywell Process Solutions, a pioneer in automation control, instrumentation and services for the oil and gas, refining, petrochemical, chemical and other industries.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia's overall production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) reached 893,600 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 3% year on year. At the same time, not all Russian producers raised their output of HDPE, according to MRC's ScanPlast report.

November total production of unmixed PVC was about 84,600 tonnes versus 88,500 tonnes a month earlier, SayanskKhimPlast and Kaustik Volgograd decreased their capacity utilisation last month. Overall PVC production reached 893,600 tonnes in January-November 2019, compared to 871,000 tonnes a year earlier. All plants raised their output, except for Kaustik Volgograd.

The structure of PVC production by plants looked the following way over the stated period.

RusVinyl (JV of SIBUR and SolVin) produced about 30,200 tonnes of PVC in November, with emulsion polyvinyl chloride (EPVC) accounting for 2,700 tonnes, compared to 29,500 tonnes a month earlier. Overall PVC production at RusVinyl was 316,700 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 4% year on year. Such a significant increase in production indicators was primarily due to the absence of long scheduled maintenance works in the current year, which was traditionally carried out in April - May.

SayanskKhimPlast produced 25,600 tonnes of suspension PVC (SPVC) last month, whereas this figure was 27,800 tonnes in October. The Sayansk plant managed to produce about 266,600 tonnes of resin in January-November, compared to 251,600 tonnes a year earlier.

Baskhir Soda Company produced about 23,000 tonnes of SPVC in November versus 23,800 tonnes a month earlier. Total SPVC production at Baskhir Soda Company increased to 239,100 tonnes in the first eleven months of this year, compared to 229,700 tonnes in the same period in 2018.

Kaustik (Volgograd) produced about 5,800 tonnes of SPVC in November, compared with 7,400 tonnes in October. The decline in production in November was due to work to modernise production. The plant's overall output of PVC exceeded 71,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2019 versus 84,500 tonnes a year earlier. The Volgograd's lower production was caused by a shutdown for maintenance in May-June.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The European Commission has approved the proposed acquisition of Lotte Chemical UK Ltd by petrochemicals giant Alpek, part of Mexican conglomerate Alfa Group, said Plasticsnewseurope.

In its decision, announced 4 Dec, the European Commission concluded that the proposed transaction would raise no competition concerns given the limited horizontal and vertical overlaps between the activities of the companies.

Lotte UK is active in the manufacture of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin while Alpek’s activities cover a range of areas including polyester, plastics and chemicals, aluminium auto components, refrigerated foods, and IT & telecoms.

Under the deal, wich was disclosed late October, Alpek will acquire the UK subsidiary of Lotte Chemical Corp., including its 350 kilotonne-per-annum (ktpa) polyethylene terephthalate (PET) facility in Wilton, in south-eastern UK.

The terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. The move marks the Mexican firm’s first acquisition outside the Americas, raising the company’s PET capacity to 2.8 million tonnes a year.

According to Gordon Haire, research director at London consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, the change of ownership also marked the exit of Lotte Chemical from PET manufacturing in Europe.

The deal is also significant as it could have significant implications for regional PTA trade flows. Lotte Chemical, Haire explained, exported around 110 ktpa of PTA from Korea to the UK over the last few years, while Alpek is also a long-established supplier into the European PTA market.

Alpek is a leading petrochemical company operating two business segments of polyesters (PTA, PET and polyester fibres), and plastics & chemicals (polypropylene, expandable polystyrene, and other speciality and industrial chemicals).

The company is an integrated producer of PTA and PET in North America, with annual sales of USD6.9bn. It operates 27 plants in the US, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, and employs more than 5,700 people.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PET consumption dropped in September 2019 by 10% year on year, totalling 58,210 tonnes. Overall, 551,320 tonnes of PET was processed in Russia in the first nine months of 2019, up 9% year on year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA will operate Curacao’s 335,000 barrel-per-day Isla refinery for up to a year more, a spokesman for Curacao’s state refining company, Refineria di Koursou (RdK), said Reuters.

PDVSA’s contract to operate the refinery was set to expire at the end of this year. The spokesman described the agreement as a “transition” measure as RdK continued efforts to find a new operator. RdK said in September that it had opened exclusive talks with industrial commodities conglomerate Klesch Group to operate the refinery.

RdK said at the time that a definitive agreement would be reached by the end of November. Talks with Klesch are ongoing, the spokesman said.

Leaving Isla would be a further blow to PDVSA which has seen its crude output plunge by more than half since 2016 due to underinvestment and mismanagement, and more recently due to U.S. sanctions intended to force out Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

PDVSA President Manuel Quevedo, also Venezuela’s oil minister, visited Curacao in July to discuss the possibility of the company staying on to operate the refinery.

RdK officials met with Quevedo in Caracas on Saturday to discuss the transition arrangement, the company said in a statement, adding that the parties discussed the possibility of doing maintenance work on the refinery.

Neither PDVSA nor Venezuela’s oil ministry immediately responded to requests for comment. In May, the U.S. government issued a license allowing Curacao’s refinery to keep working with PDVSA through January 2020 despite the sanctions.

RdK said in the statement that the license allowed for an additional transition period of up to a year during which the company can generate the revenue needed to maintain refining operations and pay workers, but not turn a profit.

As MRC informed earlier, Curacao’s state-owned Isla oil refinery, which is operated by Venezuelan state-run company PDVSA, has received an exemption from U.S. sanctions on PDVSA.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,724,670 tonnes in the first ten months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market in January-October 2019 totalled 1,066,520 tonnes, up by 7% year on year. Supply of block copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymer) and homopolymer of propylene (homopolymer PP) increased, demand for statistical copolymers (PP random copolymer) decreased.
MRC