Al-Waha conducts unplanned maintenance turnaround at PDH plant in Jubail

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sahara International Petrochemical Co. (Sipchem) has announced an unplanned turnaround maintenance at its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) facility owned by subsidiary Al Waha at Jubail, Saudi Arabia, reported Chemweek.

The turnaround started 3 March 2020 and is planned to be completed within two weeks.

This is the latest stoppage at the PDH plant, which has been dogged by operational problems over the past few years. Sipchem says the aim is to enhance the reliability of the plant and allow it to achieve its future operational targets.

The PDH plant is designed to produce 467,000 metric tons/year of propylene. It supplies a 450,000-metric tons/year of polypropylene (PP) plant at the site. Financial impact of the unplanned stoppage will be reflected in Sipchem’s first-quarter financial results. Al Waha has taken the necessary actions to limit the potential impact on customers, Sipchem says.

As MRC wrote previously, Al Waha Petrochemicals shut its PP plant for a maintenance turnaround from 27 December 2019 to 8-9 January 2020.

Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of PP.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, 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).

Established in 1999, Saudi International Petrochemical Company (Sipchem) manufactures and markets methanol, butanediol, tetrahydrofuran, acetic acid, acetic anhydride, vinyl acetate monomer. Besides, it has launched several down-stream projects to manufacture ethylene vinyl acetate, low density polyethylene, ethyl acetate, butyl acetate, cross linkable polyethylene, and semi conductive compound.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lotte Chemical, has declared a force majeure (FM) on styrene monomer (SM) supplies from its unit in Daesan, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in the South Korea informed that, the company has declared a FM following an unplanned shutdown at the upstream cracker. Further details on duration of the FM could not be ascertained.

As MRC informed earlier, the cracker was shut, following an explosion at the plant's compressor on Wednesday, February 4, 2020, at around 3:00 am.

Located at Daesan, South Korea, the SM plant has a production capacity of 580,000 mt/year.

SM is the main feedstock for the production of polystyrene (PS).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics was 46,260 tonnes in December 2019, up by 8% year on year. The estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics totalled 500,660 tonnes in 2019, down by 1% year on year. Russian producers of PS and styrene plastics produced 44,960 tonnes of material in December 2019, up by 1% year on year.

Lotte Chemical runs two naphtha crackers in South Korea. One cracker is located in Daesan county in Seosan which can produce 1.1 million tonnes per year of ethylene with the other 1.2 million tonnes per year cracker in the southwestern city of Yeosu.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Alok Industries Ltd on Saturday allotted 83.33 crore equity shares of Rs1 each at a premium of Rs2 per equity share for cash at a total consideration of Rs250 crore to Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), according to The Hindu BusinessLine.

Pursuant to this acquisition, RIL will hold 37.7 per cent equity share capital of the Mumbai-headquartered integrated textile manufacturer.

In a stock exchange notice, RIL said the acquisition is in accordance with the approved Resolution Plan.
RIL further said that in accordance with the approved Resolution Plan, Alok Industries has today also allotted 250 crore - 9 per cent optionally convertible preference shares (OCCP) of Rs1 each for cash at par, for a total consideration of ?250 crore to RIL.

In March 2019, RIL had intimated the exchanges regarding approval by the National Company Law Tribunal, Ahmedabad Bench (NCLT) of the Resolution Plan, jointly submitted by RIL and JM Financial Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (JMFARC) for acquisition of Alok Industries under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016, vide its order dated March 8, 2019.

"Approval of National Company Law Tribunal, Ahmedabad Bench and Competition Commission of India have been received. The acquisition does not fall within related party transactions and none of RIL’s promoter/promoter group/ group companies have any interest in the transaction," RIL’s statement said.

Alok Industries, incorporated in India on March 12, 1986, has interests in polyester and cotton segments. It has a product suite comprising cotton yarn, apparel fabrics, bed linen, terry towels, embroidery, garments and polyester yarn. It has representative offices for sales promotion in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

As per RIL’s statement, Alok Industries turned around in FY19, posting a net profit of Rs2,284 crore against a huge net loss of Rs18,207 crore in FY18.

As MRC reported before, in November 2019, Reliance Industries confirmed plans to invest 700 billion Indian rupees (USD9.75 billion) to establish a crude-oil-to-chemicals (COTC) complex at the company's Jamnagar, India.

The MCC/HSFCC complex will have combined capacity for 8.5 million metric tons/year (MMt/y) of ethylene and propylene, and total extraction capacity for 3.5 MMt/y of benzene, toluene, and xylenes. It will also have combined capacity for 4.0 MMt/y of para-xylene (p-xylene) and ortho-xylene. The steam cracker will have combined capacity for 4.1 MMt/y of ethylene and propylene, and feed crude C4s to a 700,000-metric tons/year butadiene extraction plant. Reliance will also add 1.3 MMt/y of p-xylene capacity at existing plants at Jamnagar.

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).

Reliance Industries is one of the world's largest producers of polymers. Thus, the company produces among others polypropylene, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - SIBUR Holding can enter the market with the offer of recycled PET within about 1.5 years, said Sergei Komyshan, Executive Director of SIBUR, during a press conference.

The executive director of SIBUR Sergey Komyshan said that the company is successfully moving in the development of a project for the production of secondary PET.

Recycled polymer packaging made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) can begin to be used in SIBUR's technological processes in the coming years. PET-flex - a secondary raw material, the result of sorting and grinding PET bottles into flakes, the Holding plans to use in the production of primary polyethylene terephthalate (PET) at Polyef (Blagoveshchensk, Bashkortostan, part of SIBUR Holding).

In November 2019, SIBUR and EcoTechnology Group of Companies signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of sustainable development, according to the website of the petrochemical holding. The purpose of the partnership is to establish mutually beneficial cooperation aimed at developing a closed-loop economy, namely the recycling of polymer packaging.

In January, the SIBUR Board of Directors approved a strategy for the sustainable development of the company. One of the goals is to increase by 50% investments in R&D projects aimed at processing polymer waste and involving renewable sources of raw materials, building an effective system of interaction on sustainable development throughout the supply chain, as well as achieving a share of PET production with secondary granule content from the total PET production in the amount of not less than 40%.

According to ScanPlast of Market Report, last year, the import of PET granules to Russia increased by 13% compared to 2018 and amounted to 144.8 thousand tons compared to 128.5 thousand tons (excluding supplies from Belarus over the past two month). Last month, import deliveries of material to the Russian market increased by 10% to 13.6 thousand tons against 12.3 thousand tons in November; last December, material imports amounted to 12.4 thousand tons.

It was previously reported that on October 9, 2019, industrial wastewater partially entered the territory adjacent to the enterprise due to the collapse of a fragment of the wall of the reserve tank.

EcoTechnology Group of Companies is an integrated Russian operator that has been implementing projects in Russia in the field of municipal solid waste sorting, recycling and separate waste collection, as well as social and educational programs since 2005. Today it is one of the largest plastic processors in Russia.

Polyef JSC (Blagoveshchensk, Republic of Bashkortostan) is a part of SIBUR, the only producer of terephthalic acid and the largest supplier of polyethylene terephthalate in Russia. The capacity for the production of TPA after modernization is 350 thousand tons per year, PET - 219 thousand tons per year.

SIBUR is a vertically integrated gas processing and petrochemical company, operating at 26 production sites located in various regions of the Russian Federation. SIBUR sells products to more than 1.4 thousand consumers in the fuel and energy complex, the automotive industry, construction, production of consumer goods, chemical and other industries in 75 countries of the world.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The federal judge overseeing Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ bankruptcy proceedings on Friday resolved a fight between two sets of lenders over which of them has first dibs on the potential USD1.25 billion in insurance proceeds for a June 2019 explosion and fire at its Girard Point refinery, reported Reuters.

US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross found that ICBC Standard Bank and Cortland Capital Market Services each hold a perfected security interest in the proceeds of the policy, which includes USD1 billion in property damage coverage and USD250 million in business insurance (BI) coverage.

As MRC wrote before, a June fire at the 335,000 barrel-per-day PES refinery led the company to file for bankruptcy and shut the plant over the summer, laying off more than 1,000 workers and ending long-standing ties with dozens of businesses. The refinery endured years of financial trouble, hurt by poor access to US crude oil production and heavy costs of complying with federal laws on blending biofuels with gasoline. The PES plan to exit bankruptcy includes a USD240 million sale of the refinery to a real estate developer, Hilco Redevelopment Partners, which is expected to use the site largely for warehousing. Los Angeles developer, Industrial Realty Group, was selected as a backup buyer.

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).
MRC