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

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

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

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

MOSCOW (MRC) -- South Korea’s Lotte Chemical might need several weeks to repair and restart its cracker in Daesan, reported CommoPlast with reference to the details received from the market.

The company shut its naphtha cracker after an explosion at the plant in the southwestern city of Seosan, which injured 31 people. The explosion, which was triggered by a fire at a compressor in Lotte Chemical’s naphtha cracker at around 3 a.m. local time (1800 GMT), was soon contained and under control, the company said then in a statement.

The petrochemical maker said it has suspended its naphtha cracker’s operations in Daesan county in Seosan due to the fire and will seek to minimize supply disruptions.

The company is looking into the exact cause of the accident, it said, adding there was no leak of toxic chemicals.

As MRC wrote before, Lotte Chemical has shut down its Deasan cracker for maintenance turnaround on October 14, 2019. The cracker resumed production on November 10, 2019. Located at Daesan in South Korea, currently the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 1.1 million mt/year and propylene capacity of 540,000 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).

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