Silvergate launches new masterbatch products for film producers

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Wrexham-based masterbatch manufacturer Silvergate Plastics has developed a new solution which addresses the build-up of pigments in machinery, said PRW.

The company developed the tailor-made masterbatches after film manufacturers had reported pigment build-up in machines despite regular clean downs.

The clogging, Silvergate said in a release, slows down cycle times and disrupts overall production.

The new solution incorporates “quality ingredients that work together to improve dispersion during manufacture”.

Available in different colours, Silvergate’s new masterbatch formulation was developed specifically to address the issue for the film market.

Manufacturers trailing the products have reported improved colour accuracy for plastic films, plus increased productivity.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LG Chem, a South Korean petrochemical major, will be backed by South Korea’s state lenders with USD5 billion in policy loans to finance its expansion in secondary battery factories across the world over the next five years as a part of the government push to promote battery business, according to Kemicalinfo.

LG Chem signed an agreement with Korea Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of Korea, and Nonghyup Bank to scale up secondary battery industry, according to the Financial Services Commission on Monday.

Under the agreement, the three lenders will pool total finance of USD5 billion to back LG Chem’s battery manufacturing expansion across the world from 2020 to 2024. Also, the banks and the battery maker will create a fund worth 150 billion won (USD126 million), which will be used to provide financing to small and medium-sized players as well as collaborate on industry-related research projects.

The Korean government in September organized a team of financial institutions to help local electronics parts and materials makers grow stronger. LG Chem has become the first beneficiary.

Last week, LG Chem announced that the company and General Motors Co will invest USD2.3 billion to build an electric vehicle battery cell joint venture plant in Ohio, which will be one of the world’s largest battery facilities.

Earlier in June, the Korean battery maker entered into another joint venture agreement with China’s top automotive group Geely in the electric car battery business, with each contributing USD87.2 million.

As MRC reported earlier, LG Chem restarted its Deasan cracker following an unplanned outage. The company resumed operations at the cracker on June 18, 2019. The cracker was shut owing to a technical issues on June 8, 2019. Located at Daesan,South Korea, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 1.27 million mt/year and propylene capacity of 650,000 mt/year.

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.

LG Chem Ltd., often referred to as LG Chemical, is the largest Korean chemical company and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. According to ICIS report, it is 15th biggest chemical company in the world in 2011. It has eight domestic factories and global network of 29 business locations in 15 countries. LG Chem is a manufacturer, supplier, and exporter of petrochemical goods, IT&E Materials and Energy Solutions.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Oil and gas producers could wipe billions of dollars more off the value of US natural gas assets in the months ahead, analysts said, after Chevron Corp became the fourth oil major to slash its estimates for sector values, reported Reuters.

A long, steady increase in US gas production - much of it a byproduct of the shale oil boom - has pushed prices for the fuel heading toward a 25-year low and a number of analysts have already forecast that the oversupply will worsen in 2020.

Prior to Chevron’s impairment, BP PLC, Repsol SA and Equinor ASA had written down billions worth of North American shale assets in recent months.

Chevron on Tuesday said it expects to take writedowns to the tune of USD10 billion to USD11 billion in the fourth quarter, more than half of which is related to its Appalachia gas shale assets. Shares of the company were down 0.7% at USD117.04 in early trading.

It also flagged a cut to its longer-term commodity price outlook without specifying numbers, and said it was planning to sell some natural gas projects.

"It ... highlights that many companies are still carrying assets on their balance sheet that were acquired or developed with cost structures that are materially higher than today’s levels," Berenberg analysts Henry Tarr and Ilkin Karimli said.

BP Plc said in its 2018 annual report that it determines the size of its recoverable oil and gas reserves based on a long-term Brent oil price of USD75 a barrel and a Henry Hub natural gas price of USD4 per mmbtu.

European peer Shell has also long expected improvement in prices and forecast in its 2018 annual report that Henry Hub natural gas prices would rise to USD3.50 in 2020 and 2021 from USD3.25 per mmbtu in 2019.

Benchmark gas prices are currently around USD2.28 and Morgan Stanley analysts on Wednesday lowered their forecast for next year to USD2.25 from USD2.50.

Spain’s Repsol last week recorded a 4.8 billion euro (USD5.29 billion) asset loss, primarily on its North America assets. BP took a USD3.3 billion charge in the third quarter with USD2.3 billion relating to heritage shale assets from the BHP portfolio it acquired last year for USD10.5 billion.

Norway’s Equinor wrote off USD2.8 billion in the third quarter, while Exxon Mobil Corp took a USD2 billion charge in 2017 against the value of natural gas reserves from its buyout of XTO Energy.

"The pricing companies have to use for reporting their proved reserves are on pace to be around 15% lower than last year, so I’d expect reserve write-downs to be prolific," Edward Jones analyst Jennifer Rowland said.

As MRC wrote oreviously, in March 2018, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP, a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation, successfully introduced feedstock and commenced operations of a new ethane cracker at its Cedar Bayou facility in Baytown, Texas. At peak production, the unit will produce 1.5 million metric tons/3.3 billion lbs. per year.

We also remind that US-based Phillips 66 remains open to developing another ethane cracker for its Chevron Phillips Chemical (CP Chem) joint venture, the refiner's CEO said in March 2018.

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.

Headquartered in San Ramon, California, Chevron Corporation is the the second-largest integrated energy company in the United States and among the largest corporations in the world. Chevron is involved in upstream activities including exploration and production, downstream activities including refining, marketing and transportation, and advanced energy technology. Chevron is also invested in power generation and gasification processes.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc cut back production on the crude distillation unit (CDU) and shut the coker at its 225,300-barrel-per-day (bpd) Norco refinery in Louisiana, reported Reuters sources familiar with the plant operations said.

Three workers were also injured on the same day after the release of hot condensate from the gasoline-producing residual catalytic cracking unit (RCCU) at the Norco refinery, the sources said late Wednesday.

It was unclear if the two events were related, the sources said.

Shell spokesman Ray Fisher declined to discuss the status of operations at the refinery.

The three contract workers were taken to a local hospital and are expected to recover completely, Fisher said.

Production at the 240,000-bpd DU-5 CDU was reduced to repair a leak, the sources said. The cut in CDU production stopped residual crude going to the 25,000-bpd coker and it had to be shut, the sources said.

The CDU does the primary refining of crude oil into feedstocks for all other production units at the refinery.

Cokers convert residual crude oil supplied by distillation units into feedstock for motor fuels or petroleum coke - a coal substitute.

As MRC informed before, in mid-October 2019, Royal Dutch Shell Plc restarted the hydrocracker at its 225,300 barrel-per-day (bpd) Norco, Louisiana, refinery. 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.

We also remind that Shell Singapore restarted its naphtha cracker in Bukom Island on 7-10 December, following a two months maintenance shutdown since the beginning of October 2019. Thus, this cracker was taken off-stream for the turnaround on 1 October 2019. The cracker is able to produce 960,000 tons/year of ethylene and 550,000 tons/year of propylene.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,724,670 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.

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) -- Firefighters have put out a fire caused by a pipeline leak at a refinery in northeastern China operated by PetroChina, reported Reuters with reference to media reports on Thursday.

The fire broke out at 9:39 pm local time on Wednesday after an oil pipeline leak at No.2 oil plant PetroChina’s Fushun Petrochemical Corp in northeast China’s Liaoning province, People’s Daily reported.

The fire was put out around midnight after more than 40 fire trucks were dispatched to the site. There were no injuries, the report said.

A PetroChina spokesman said he was not aware of the accident and couldn’t immediately comment.

As MRC informed earlier, in the second half of 2012, a subsidiary of PetroChina - Fushun Petrochemical - started production of basic petrochemical products at its new plant in Fushun, Liaoning Province, China. The design capacity of the petrochemical complex is 300,000 tonnes per year of polypropylene (PP), 350,000 tonnes per year of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and 450,000 tonnes per year of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE).

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.

PetroChina Company Limited is a Chinese oil company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing. It is China's biggest oil producer and the most profitable company in Asia.
MRC