Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical to shut its CDU and gasoil hydrogenation unit in China for turnaround

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical, the subsidiary of one of the world's largest energy and chemical companies - Sinopec, will shut its 3.5 million mt/year CDU and 3.3 million mt/year gasoil hydrogenation unit for maintenance over mid-March to early April, reported S&P Global.

As MRC wrote earlier, Sinopec Qilu Petrochemical, another subsidiary of Sinopec, plans to shut the cracker unit in Tianjin in northeast China for scheduled repairs on 15 June, 2020. This cracking unit with a capacity of 900,000 tonnes of ethylene per year and 480,000 tonnes of propylene tons per year will be closed for scheduled repairs until 24 June, 2020.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).

Sinopec corp. is one of the world's largest integrated energy and chemical companies. Business Sinopec Corp. includes oil and gas exploration, production and transportation of oil and gas, oil refining, petrochemical production, production of mineral fertilizers and other chemical products. In terms of refining capacity, Sinopec Corp. ranks second in the world, in terms of ethylene capacity - fourth.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec's Jinling Petrochemical plans to shut its 1.5 million mt/year FCC, and a 600,000 mt/year gasoline hydrotreater for three months due to slow gasoline sales, reported S&P Global with reference to a source with the refinery.

Meanwhile, the refinery will also cut crude throughput in February from the planned 1.35 million mt.

As MRC informed before, Sinopec Qilu Petrochemical, the subsidiary of one of the world's largest energy and chemical companies, Sinopec, plans to shut the cracker unit in Tianjin in northeast China for scheduled repairs on 15 June, 2020. This cracking unit with a capacity of 900,000 tonnes of ethylene per year and 480,000 tonnes of propylene tons per year will be closed for scheduled repairs until 24 June, 2020.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).

Sinopec corp. is one of the world's largest integrated energy and chemical companies. Business Sinopec Corp. includes oil and gas exploration, production and transportation of oil and gas, oil refining, petrochemical production, production of mineral fertilizers and other chemical products. In terms of refining capacity, Sinopec Corp. ranks second in the world, in terms of ethylene capacity - fourth.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- State-owned PetroChina shut its Guangxi Petrochemical in southern Guangxi province on February 9 for scheduled 50-day maintenance, a refinery source told S&P Global .

The maintenance should help the refinery to offset stock pressure after product demand slumped due to the coronavirus outbreak.

As MRC reported previously, PetroChina's subsidiary refinery, Dalian Petrochemical Corp, plans to have a major turnaround in April-May of 2020, four industry sources told Reuters in early January 2020. The maintenance is scheduled to start from late March or early April and will last for around one and a half months, the sources said.

The 410,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) plant in the northeast Chinese port city of Dalian, PetroChina's biggest refinery, is linked to Russia's East Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline and is China's largest processor of the pipeline ESPO blend crude.

We also remind that Sichuan Petrochemical (part of PetroChina) undertook an emergency shutdown at its naphtha cracker in Sichuan province of China on July 11, 2018 owing to a gas leak at its natural gas supply pipeline. Further details on duration of the outage could not be ascertained. Located at Sichuan province of China, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 800,000 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 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).

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

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) and ALPLA have established a new joint venture, named Envicco, to build and operate a recycled plastics resin plant at the Asia Industrial Estate in Rayong Province, Thailand, according to Apic-online.

Envicco, owned 70% by PTTGC and 30% by ALPLA, will manufacture 30,000 t/y of recycled polyethylene ter-ephthalate (PET) and 15,000 t/y of recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Commercial operations are expected to begin within the fourth quarter of 2021.

The new plant "substantially aligns" with PTTGC's Sustainability Strategy for Circular Economy, which aims to be a pilot company for plastic waste management by converting used plastic packaging to "high-quality" recycled plastic resins to serve the increasing market demand, PTTGC noted.

As MRC reported before, PTTGC has planned to bring on-stream its No. 2 cracker in Map Ta Phut by end-February, 2020. The cracker was shut for maintenance on January 20, 2020. Located at Map Ta Phut, Thailand, the No. 2 cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 400,000 mt/year.

The company also operates No. 1 cracker at the same site with a capacity of 515,000 tonnes of ethylene and 310,000 tonnes of propylene per year, which was also shut on 23 January, 2020, for a 40-day turnaround.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).

PTT Global Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Teijin Ltd. is expanding its footprint in Europe with Teijin Automotive Center Europe GmbH, a new base in Wuppertal, Germany, that will house technical functions for the company’s automotive composites business, reported PlasticsNews.

Teijin Ltd. is expanding its footprint in Europe with Teijin Automotive Center Europe GmbH (TACE), a new base in Wuppertal, Germany, that will house technical functions for the company's automotive composites business.

The Japanese materials firm said Jan. 28 that the German operation will handle concept, designing, prototyping, evaluations, marketing and technical research for next-generation automotive components.The Wuppertal site will be up and running in February.

With TACE, Teijin said it will allow the company to establish a stronger platform for collaboration within the group's European automotive composites business. More specifically, TACE will explore and research opportunities for new technologies, as well as mergers and acquisitions, in an effort to accelerate joint development with European automakers and respond to demands for design freedom, productivity, cost efficiency, weight reduction and strength.

In the past few years, Teijin has been making strategic moves in Europe as it targets sales of approximately 1.7 billion euros (EUR1.9 billion) within its automotive composites business by 2030. This includes the acquisition last year of Benet Automotive sro., a Tier 1 supplier of composite components with three facilities in the Czech Republic and one in Germany. In 2018, Teijin acquired Portugal's Inapal Plasticos SA, another automotive composites supplier.

Teijin-owned Continental Structural Plastics Inc. of Auburn Hills, Mich., is also further tapping into Europe. The composites supplier's French operation is opening a new sheet molding compound plant.

In addition, Teijin is pursuing opportunities for other locations for its automotive composites business in the United States and China. The strategy is part of the company's response to the automotive industry's "ongoing shift toward connected, autonomous, shared and electric automobiles" and the growing need for more lightweight, multifunctional and multimaterial designs, the news release said.

As MRC wrote before, in late 2015, Japan's Teijin shut down its polycarbonate (PC) resin plant in Singapore by end 2015 and put the industrial facility on Jurong Island up for sale through an expression of interes. The plan to shutter was part of the company's restructuring exercise of its loss-making businesses. Hurt particularly by high energy costs, the Singapore plant, which began operations in October 1999, had also been beaten by low-cost China rivals. It had four production lines. One production line was shut down in October, 2014, and another in May, 2015. The remaining two were shut by late 2015. Teijin scaled back on its production of commoditised products under its restructuring exercise, and moved its production of PC resin to its subsidiary in China and to its plant in Matsuyama in Japan, which it considers especially suited to the development of high-performance products, the company said then.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PC consumption (excluding imports and exports to/from Belarus) totalled 78,500 tonnes in 2019, up by 15% year on year (68,100 tonnes a year earlier).

Teijin is a technology-driven global group offering advanced solutions in the areas of sustainable transportation, information and electronics, safety and protection, environment and energy, and healthcare. Its main fields of operation are high-performance fibers such as aramid, carbon fibers & composites, healthcare, films, resin & plastic processing, polyester fibers, products converting and IT. The group has some 150 companies and around 17,000 employees spread out over 20 countries worldwide.
MRC