Neste among the signatories of the European Plastics Pact

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Neste, together with several European Union Member States and forerunner companies representing different parts of the European plastics sector, have signed the European Plastics Pact in Brussels, Belgium, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The European Plastics Pact is a frontrunner initiative and a platform for leading countries and private organizations from the entire plastics value chain from across Europe to collaborate and accelerate the systemic shift to a circular plastics economy in Europe.

"Neste is a purpose-driven company with an ambition to create a healthier planet for our children. By signing the European Plastics Pact, we wish to re-emphasize our solid commitment to help the European plastics industry to create transformative solutions to combating plastic pollution and reduce the industry’s reliance on fossil oil. While our renewable solutions have already been used to replace fossil feedstock in the production of bio-based polypropylene and polyethylene at a commercial scale for the European market, we are accelerating the development of chemical recycling capacity together with several value chain partners to speed up the shift to a circular plastics economy,'' says Mercedes Alonso, Executive Vice President, Renewable Polymers and Chemicals, Neste.

The European Plastics Pact aims to accelerate cross-border exchange and collaboration on a pan-European scale to supplement and support the already existing European and global commitments as well as the existing national and company initiatives on the circularity of plastics value chain.

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

Lyondell refinery FCC outage will impact first-quarter 2020 refining returns

MOSCOW (MRC) -- An extended shutdown of the gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker (FCC) at Lyondell Basell Industries’ 263,776 barrel-per-day Houston refinery will impact refining segment returns for the first quarter of this year, reported Reuters with reference to Lyondell Chief Executive Bob Patel's statement.

"Quarter-to-quarter, our refining segment will see some impact from market effects and some internal downtime we’ve had on our FCC," Patel said in a webcast presentation to Wall Street investors at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference.

The market effects Patel referred to include the impact of the Corona virus.

He said the company, which primarily produces chemicals at plants around the world, was free of the virus and its operations in China were resuming following the initial spread of the illness.

The 90,000-bpd FCC was shut by a Feb. 16 fire. Repair of cracks in the unit’s reactor found after the fire is expected to continue through the first week of April, Gulf Coast market sources have told Reuters.

The reactor is the portion of the unit where gasoline is made when fine, powder catalyst interacts with gas oil.

As MRC wrote previously, iin September 2016, LyondellBasell selected its La Porte, Texas, manufacturing complex as the site for a new high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant. The plant will be the first commercial plant to employ LyondellBasell's new proprietary Hyperzone PE technology and will have an annual capacity of 1.1 billion pounds (500,000 metric tons). Construction began in early 2017 with start-up planned for Q1 2020.

According to MRC's DataScope report, HDPE imports into Russia grew in January-December 2019 by 44% year on year, reaching 363,100 tonnes. Pipe grade and film grade polyethylene (PE) accounted for the greatest increase in imports.

LyondellBasell is one of the world's largest plastics, chemical and refining companies. The company manufactures products at 57 sites in 18 countries. LyondellBasell products and technologies are used to make items that improve the quality of life for people around the world including packaging, electronics, automotive parts, home furnishings, construction materials and biofuels. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
MRC

Nantong Synthetic resumes operations at its BPA unit in Jiangsu

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nantong Synthetic Materials, has brought on-stream its Bisphenol A (BPA) unit following a maintenance turnaround, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that, the company has resumed operations at the unit on March 9, 2019. The unit remained under maintenance for about one week.

Located at Nantong in Jiangsu province of China, the unit has a production capacity of 150,000 mt/year.

BPA is used for the production of polycarbonate (PC).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PC granules (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).
MRC

Coca-Cola, Indorama Ventures to build plastic bottle recycling plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines (CCBPI) on Monday said it partnered with Indorama Ventures to build the country’s biggest bottle-to-bottle recycling facility, said the company.

Coca-Cola said the P1-billion facility, called PETValue, will be set up in General Trias in Cavite and is expected to be completed by 2021.

The facility would ensure that used PET plastic bottles will be “collected, processed and used again and again,” Coca-Cola said in a statement.

It is projected to handle 30,000 metric tons of plastic a year or almost 2 billion pieces of plastic bottles.

"Through PETValue, Indorama Ventures and Coca-Cola are introducing to the Philippines green technologies that will help strengthen Filipino’s commitment to sustainability—a major step in making our World Without Waste vision a reality in the Philippines," CCBPI CEO Gareth McGeown said.

Coca-Cola said it aims to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle and can it sells by 2030 under its World Without Waste goal.

As per MRC DataScope, imports of PET chips into Russia increased by 31% in January of this year compared to the same time a year ago and reached 11,570 tonnes compared to 8,8700 tonnes (excluding supplies from Belarus over the past two months). A month earlier, import deliveries of material to the Russian market were at the level of 14,940 tonnes. The share of Chinese material was 58% (6,700 tonnes) in January versus 75% (11,600 tonnes) a month earlier.
MRC

ExxonMobil Baton Rouge refinery to restart fourth crude unit this week

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Exxon Mobil Corp plans to restart this week the last crude distillation unit (CDU) idled at its 502,500 barrel-per-day (bpd) Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery by a Feb. 12 fire, reported Reuters with reference to sources familiar with plant operations.

The 90,000 bpd PSLA-7 CDU may restart at the beginning of this week, the sources said. The other three CDUs at the refinery restarted last week.

As MRC informed before, in September 2019, ExxonMobil announced plans to spend GBP140 million over the next two years in an additional investment program at its Fife ethylene plant, which has a capacity of more than 800,000 t/y.

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).

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC