AVEVA acquires production accounting capability from MESEnter to drive customers’ digital transformation

MOSCOW (MRC) -- AVEVA, a global leader in engineering and industrial software, announced today that it has acquired production accounting software from South Korean based company MESEnter to complete AVEVA’s value chain optimization solution, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

MESEnter’s software offering, previously branded MES ENTER ErrorSolver and now rebranded AVEVA Production Accounting, has been proven and tested by major producers in the continuous process industries since 2005. It opens the opportunity to improve accuracy of planning models, manage operations performance, identify loss detection and faulty instrumentation and ultimately move operations towards a plant-wide reconciliation.

"AVEVA's leadership in optimizing across the value chain continues to create new opportunities as part of the digital transformation of refinery, petrochemical and mining operations," said Harpreet Gulati, Senior Vice President, Planning and Operations at AVEVA. "The addition of this technology also provides another integral piece in AVEVA’s process operations portfolio.”

The newly added software will enable AVEVA to deliver a more robust offer that drives profitability across the value chain for its customers. AVEVA Production Accounting software furthers AVEVA’s commitment towards its Value Chain Optimization strategy to help customers eliminate information silos and integrate critical business processes across their operations.

This is yet another example of AVEVA’s continued focus to bring together a complete portfolio geared towards optimizing its customers’ value chains to help drive their digital transformation strategies. The newly acquired software will enable customers to close the loop with prescriptive performance management of their operations, ensuring that actual performance helps to drive decision-making for future planning.

"AVEVA has been a long-time partner of MESEnter and so this technology acquisition makes absolute sense. It presents a great opportunity for operators to efficiently leverage the value available from production accounting to help with material balance and data reconciliation across the plant", said WS Cho, CEO of MESEnter.

AVEVA Production Accounting software has a user-friendly interface which provides a graphical flowsheet environment for creating and maintaining the plant balance models. It allows easy navigation from area to area, utilising intuitive screens from managing data connections, reconciliation steps, model configuration and more. It can also be configured to perform reconciliation around smaller areas of the plant such as compressors, pumps, exchangers, tanks or groupings of process equipment.

As MRC informed before, in February 2019, AVEVA announced a major update to its Monitoring, Control and Information Management portfolio, delivering edge-to-cloud integration and advanced visualization tools, along with seamless access to advanced applications and powerful analytics.
MRC

MOCOW (MRC) -- South Africa’s Sasol Ltd said it would be running its refineries through coronavirus lockdowns, but will cut throughput at some plants and may now see some impact on financial results this year as it faces the fallout of a credit ratings downgrade and a global collapse in oil prices, reported Reuters.

The company reiterated plans including an asset sale and a potential rights issue of up to USD2 billion, in response to rating downgrades by S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s.

It said the downgrade would cost it around USD10 million annually in extra financing costs.

As MRC wrote earlier, in mid December 2019, Sasol announced that the LCCP Ethane Cracker was increasing production rates following the successful replacement of the acetylene reactor catalyst. Sasol’s Ethane Cracker with a nameplate capacity of 1.54 million tons per year achieved beneficial operation in August 2019 but has run approximately 50-60% of nameplate capacity due to underperformance of the plant’s acetylene removal system. The company stated that the issue had been resolved then.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.

Sasol is an international integrated chemicals and energy company that leverages technologies and the expertise of our 31 270 people working in 32 countries. The company develops and commercialises technologies, and builds and operates world-scale facilities to produce a range of high-value product stream, including liquid fuels, petrochemicals and low-carbon electricity.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia's overall polyethylene (PE) production totalled 474,100 tonnes in the first two months of 2020, up by 58% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim accounted for the main increase in the output, according to MRC's ScanPlast report.

February total PE production in Russia rose to 237,800 tonnes, whereas this figure was 236,300 tonnes a month earlier, output of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased. Thus, overall PE production reached 474,100 tonnes in January-February 2020, compared to 300,700 tonnes a year earlier. Five producers raised their output of PE, but ZapSibNeftekhim accounted for the greatest increase in production.

The PE production structure by grades looked the following way over the stated period.

February total HDPE production grew to 140,500 tonnes from 137,800 tonnes a month earlier. ZapSibNeftekhim raised its capacity utilisation. Russian plants' overall HDPE output reached 278,300 tonnes in January-February 2020, up by 77% year on year.

Last month's total low density polyethylene (LDPE) production decreased to 53,700 tonnes from 58,500 tonnes in January, Angarsk Polymers Plant and Gazpron neftekhim Salavat reduced their output. Thus, overall production of this PE grade totalled 112,200 tonnes over the stated period, up by 2% year on year.

February LLDPE production rose to 43,600 tonnes from 40,100 tonnes a month earlier, ZapSibNeftekhim increased its capacity utilisation. Overall LLDPE output increased to 83,600 tonnes in the first two months of 2020 from 34,100 tonnes a year earlier.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell, one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world, has informed the engineering and construction contractors it will slow construction of its world-scale propylene oxide (PO) and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) plant, said the producer in its press release.

The company is limiting non-essential activities at this time due to ongoing concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including government orders designed to limit human contact.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented and evolving. Because the PO/TBA site is currently under construction and not producing needed products yet, in the interest of health and safety we believe it is prudent to limit construction activities at this time," said Torkel Rhenman, executive vice president, Intermediates & Derivatives (I&D). "We remain committed to the completion of this strategic investment incorporating our low-cost, next generation PO/TBA technology. Over the next several weeks, we will be working with our contractors and suppliers to develop a revised project timeline."

LyondellBasell's PO/TBA project broke ground in August 2018. Currently, the project is more than 30 percent complete with ongoing installation of key equipment and towers. The PO/TBA project has a split-facility design to optimize synergies between two existing LyondellBasell sites. A 140-acre PO/TBA plant is being built at the company's Channelview, Texas facility, and an associated 34-acre ethers unit is being built at the company's Bayport Complex in Pasadena, Texas. When complete, the PO/TBA plant will produce approximately 1 billion pounds (470,000 metric tons) of PO and 2.2 billion pounds (1 million metric tons) of TBA annually, which will serve the growing need for better insulation material, home comfort, cleaner fuels and other consumer applications.

This announcement does not impact LyondellBasell's ongoing operations at Channelview or Bayport, which are designated as part of the United States' critical infrastructure by the Department of Homeland Security.

As MRC reported earlier, Lyondell Basell Industries said maintenance operations were staffed at its Houston refinery to assure safety and reliability. Gulf Coast market sources told Reuters hundreds of contractors were home last week to reduce the risk of coronavirus spreading in the 263,776 barrel-per-day refinery. Those contractors work for companies hired by Lyondell to perform maintenance on units in the refinery. Lyondell employee operations and maintenance staff continue to work in the refinery, the sources said.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.

LyondellBasell is one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world. Driven by its 13,000 employees around the globe, LyondellBasell produces materials and products that are key to advancing solutions to modern challenges like enhancing food safety through lightweight and flexible packaging, protecting the purity of water supplies through stronger and more versatile pipes, and improving the safety, comfort and fuel efficiency of many of the cars and trucks on the road. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Air Products has reached an agreement with PBF Energy Inc. that include the acquisition of USD530 million of five hydrogen steam methane reformers (SMR) hydrogen production plants and the long-term supply of hydrogen to PBF refiners from those already operating plants, according to Kemicalinfo.

Located in Torrance and Martinez, California and Delaware City, the SMRs have a combined production capacity of nearly 300 million standard cubic feet per day.

The deal is expected to close during the third quarter of 2020 fiscal year.

"This puts us in an outstanding financial position to execute our strategy of investing in long-term onsite deals, which includes asset acquisitions like the one we are announcing today. With this acquisition, not only do we gain five SMR plants, but we also secure a long-term hydrogen sale of gas agreement with an existing customer who is one of the largest independent refiners in North America," said Seifi Ghasemi, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer at Air Products.

Air Products is known as a leader in the supply of hydrogen to refineries in order to make cleaner burning transportation fuels.

The company also operates one of the most successful carbon capture projects in the world in Port Arthur, Texas, where the captured carbon dioxide (CO2) is injected into the ground and used for enhanced oil recovery in the state. Since 2013, Air Products has captured nearly 10 million tons of CO2 at Port Arthur that has been put to beneficial use.

Air Products currently operates 12 industrial gas facilities in California, which includes five hydrogen production plants.

The SMR being purchased in Delaware City would be Air Products’ first major asset operating in Delaware.

As MRC wrote before, US refiner PBF Energy has completed its acquisition of Shell’s 157,000 bbl/day Martinez refinery near San Francisco, California. The USD1bn deal, agreed in June 2019, was completed effective 1 February 2020.

Besides, in late March 2020, PBF Energy Inc said it was operating its refineries at minimum rates, with throughput about 30% lower than the refiner’s expectations, as coronavirus-driven travel curbs hit fuel demand.

We also remind that Shell Singapore restarted its naphtha cracker in Bukom Island in early December 2019, following a two months maintenance shutdown since the beginning of October 2019. Thus, this cracker was taken off-stream for the turnaround on 1 October 2019. The cracker is able to produce 960,000 tons/year of ethylene and 550,000 tons/year of propylene.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.
MRC