Guyanas first-ever oil cargo to be refined by oil major

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A vessel carrying Guyana’s first-ever shipment of crude set sail bound for the U.S. Gulf Coast, oil major Exxon Mobil Corp said, marking the tiny South American nation’s long-awaited debut as an oil exporter, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The Suezmax vessel Yannis P, loaded with about 1 million barrels of Liza light sweet crude was bound for Galveston, Texas, according to tracking service TankerTrackers.com, and departed from the floating platform Liza Destiny off Guyana.

Exxon and partners Hess Corp and China’s CNOOC started production at Guyana’s promising Stabroek block in December, ahead of schedule, after finding more than 6 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas.

Exxon had said on Friday that the project’s first crude shipment would load during the weekend and head for its refining network. The U.S. company operates refineries in Louisiana and Texas in addition to plants inland in Montana and Illinois.

All commercial oil resources in Guyana, an impoverished nation whose economy is expected to be transformed by its emerging oil industry, have been found at the Stabroek offshore block, where Exxon and its partners have disclosed 15 large discoveries so far.

The Exxon-led venture alone expects to produce at least 750,000 barrels per day of crude by 2025, enough for Guyana to become an oil power alongside neighboring Venezuela and Brazil.

Guyana’s transition to an oil-producing country has sparked a political controversy in the nation’s ongoing presidential campaign over the way the government gave exploration and production rights and designed its royalty framework.

Guyana’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has criticized President David Granger’s 2016 deal with Exxon as too generous and pledged to “immediately engage the oil and gas companies in better contract administration/re-negotiation.” Exxon said the negotiated terms of the contracts “are competitive with other agreements signed in countries at a similar resource development phase."

Exxon is expected to export both its first two cargoes of Guyanese oil. Another of the first shipments from the Liza field is scheduled to be taken by U.S.-based Hess in February, with others earmarked for sale by the Guyanese government through an open-market tender won by Royal Dutch Shell.

In December 2019, ExxonMobil halted PE production at its site in Notre Dame de Gravenchon, France due to commercial reasons, without providing further details.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Arabia’s SHARQ, or Eastern Petrochemical Company, is planning to shut its high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) lines during the first quarter of 2020, reported NCT with reference to a source familiar with matter.

Located in Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, each of the two PE lines has a production capacity of 400,000 tons/year.

The precise duration of the shutdown was not available at the time of press.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dongguan Grand Resource Science and Tech, has restarted its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant following a maintenance turnaround, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that, the company has resumed operations at the plant on January 17, 2020. The plant was shut for maintenance on January 6, 2020.

Located in Guangdong, China, the plant has a propylene production capacity of 600,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, the company also took off-stream its polypropylene (PP) plant in China for turnaround at the same period. Located in Guangdong, China, the PP plant comprising two units have a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year each.

Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of PP.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, the PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.

Dongguan Grand Resource Science and Technology Co Ltd is owned by Juzhengyuan Energy (Shenzhen, Guangdong, China). On 26 October 2019, Dongguan Grand Resource’s (Dongguan, Guangdong, China) integrated complex for polypropylene production in Dongguan officially started up.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical Co Ltd, one of two new major refineries built in China in 2019, has recently started up the remaining units in the first phase of its refinery and petrochemical complex, reported Reuters.

The complex, in east China’s Zhoushan city, is now producing oil products and chemicals to commercial specifications, Zhejiang Petrochemical said on its website.

The company, 51% owned by private chemical group Zhejiang Rongsheng Holdings, said it has started test production at ethylene, aromatics and other downstream facilities, without giving further details.

Zhejiang Petrochemical started a first 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) crude processing unit in late May, following on from the start of a 400,000-bpd refinery owned by another private chemical major Hengli Petrochemical.

The newly started units at Zhejiang Petrochemical should include a second 200,000-bpd crude unit, a 1.2 million tonnes per year (tpy) ethylene unit and a 2 million tpy paraxylene unit, according to several industry sources with knowledge of the plant’s operations.

As MRC wrote previously, in early December 2012, Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical Co Ltd launched a 3.8-million-ton-per-year reformer unit, a key processing facility at its new mega refinery and petrochemical complex in east China. The reformer unit, which processes naphtha into aromatics, is the world’s single-largest facility of its kind.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- As already announced at the end of 2018, BASF will proceed with expanding global capacities for methane sulfonic acid (MSA) to 50,000 metric tons per year. This involves a higher double-digit million euro investment in constructing a new methane sulfonic acid plant at the Ludwigshafen site, as per the company's press release.

The construction works started recently. The volumes from the additional capacity are expected to be available from the end of 2021 and are dedicated to mainly serve European customers as well as the rapidly growing Asian market.

"We want to meet our customers' growing demand for high-quality, sustainable and high-performance technologies in the best possible way now and in future. To achieve that, we continuously invest in expanding our capacities and production technologies. To this end, we acquired an innovative process approach for producing MSA from Grillo-Werke AG in mid 2019 to strengthen our own R&D activities and to accelerate the development of a new manufacturing process for methane sulfonic acid. In doing so, we support as reliable partner the growth of our customers across the world," said Ralph Schweens, President Care Chemicals, BASF.

Methane sulfonic acid is a strong organic acid used in numerous applications ranging from chemical and biofuel synthesis to industrial cleaning and metal surface treatment in the electronics industry. BASF's high-purity methane sulfonic acid - sold under the brand name Lutropur MSA - is a sustainable alternative to other acids such as sulfuric, phosphoric or acetic acid. As part of the natural sulfur cycle, Lutropur MSA is readily biodegradable. Further benefits of using methane sulfonic acid come from its non-oxidizing character, the high solubility of its salts and the absence of color and odor.

As MRC wrote previously, BASF, the world's petrochemical major, restarted its No. 1 steam cracker on September 30, 2019, following a maintenance turnaorund. The plant was shut for maintenance in mid-August, 2019. Located at Ludwigshafen in Germany, the No. 1 cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 235,000 mt/year and a propylene production capacity of 125,000 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 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.

BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries. BASF generated sales of around EUR63 billion in 2018.
mrcplast.com