Plastic lumber maker Tangent acquires rival Bedford Technology

MOSCOW (MRC) -- In a deal involving two companies that use post-consumer HDPE as a feedstock, Aurora, Ill.-based Tangent Technologies has acquired Bedford Technology for an undisclosed amount, said Canplastics.

Tangent manufactures HDPE lumber used for outdoor furniture, site amenities, structural applications, and marine decking. Worthington, Minn.-based Bedford is a lumber extruder for product lines also used in marine infrastructure projects, boardwalks, fencing, and other industrial applications.

The acquisition was completed at the end of February and announced on March 23.

"We are delighted to partner with Bedford and to expand the ranges and combined solutions of plastic lumber products,” Tangent CEO Guy DeFeo said in a press release. “With the addition of Bedford, we will build a broader facility footprint across North America as well as build one of the best alternative material innovation organizations for our customers."

As MRC informed earlier, Karpatneftekhim (Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk region), Ukraine"s largest petrochemical plant, has resumed its high density polyethylene (HDPE) production after a long and forced outage. The plant"s representative and customers said the Ukrainian producer had launched its HDPE production by 23 March. The shutdown of polyethylene (PE) production was forced and took place in early January due to high feedstock prices amid low PE prices. The situation in feedstocks markets has changed dramatically since February, thus, oil prices fell significantly, which allowed to restart PE production.

MRC

ExxonMobil holds virtual foundation-laying ceremony as it expands presence in Singapore with investment and new tech

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil held a virtual foundation laying ceremony on Tuesday (March 31) for its multi-billion-dollar expansion of its Jurong Island refining and petrochemical complex to increase its production capacity for higher-value products and cleaner fuels, said Straitstimes.

This investment, which the international energy company announced in April last year, will create 135 new jobs.

It will also have significant spin-offs to the rest of the economy in areas such as logistics, process construction and maintenance, said Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean, who participated in the ceremony.

In lieu of a physical foundation laying ceremony, ExxonMobil held a video conference from two locations in Singapore and one in Dallas.

New catalyst and process technologies will be deployed at the Chemical and Refining Integrated Singapore Project to convert fuel oil and other bottom-of-the-barrel crude products into higher-value lubricant base stocks and distillates.

The expansion will increase production capacity of cleaner fuels with lower-sulphur content by 48,000 barrels per day, and 20,000 barrels per day of lubricant base stocks.

It can also optimise overall energy use and limit emissions at the facility. Waste heat will be recovered and used to generate steam to reduce electricity and fuel consumption.

Mr Teo said: "Amidst a challenging outlook in the global economy and energy industry, this is a clear indication of ExxonMobil's continued commitment to and confidence in Singapore, as its choice partner and manufacturing hub for the region.

The Singapore refining and petrochemical complex is ExxonMobil's largest integrated manufacturing facility in the world, with a crude oil distillation capacity of 592,000 barrels per day and ethylene capacity of 1.9 million tonnes per year.

ExxonMobil is also one of Singapore's largest foreign investors with over $25 billion in fixed asset investments.

The firm is in discussions with the Government on potential decarbonisation pathways, including opportunities to pilot novel carbon capture technologies here.

As MRC informed earlier, ExxonMobil Corp plans to shut the small gasoline-producing unit at its 560,500 barrels-per-day (bpd) Baytown, Texas, refinery early this week because of low demand due to efforts to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The shutdown of the 90,000 bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker 2 (FCC 2) could have happened as early as this weekend, 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.

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

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

Sasol flags refinery slowdowns

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

PE production in Russia up by 58% in Jan-Feb 2020

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