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MOSCOW (MRC) -- PTTGC America
expects fallout from the coronavirus pandemic to further delay its final
investment decision to launch major construction on a petrochemical complex in
southeast Ohio, reported S&P Global
with reference to the company's statement in an email
Wednesday.
"We do believe FID will be impacted by the health crisis, but
at this point it is difficult to predict how," the company said on Wednesday.
"The companies are doing all they can to reach FID as quickly as possible, but
as you know, there are things out of their control."
PTTGC America and
its partner, Daelim Chemical USA, "would begin construction pretty much
immediately after FID," the company said.
PTTGC, the US arm of Thailand's
PTT Global Chemical, has repeatedly delayed FID for the project, with the latest
timeline targeting the first half of 2020. The companies received a necessary
permit in December 2018 from Ohio's Environmental Protection Agency, and the FID
delays allowed more time to evaluate engineering designs, and site preparation
work began in mid-2019.
The companies said in February that preparation
work was completed, and activity would be "significantly reduced" for the next
two to three months as financing and supply agreements were
finalized.
The project includes a 1.5 million mt/year ethane cracker and
four derivative polyethylene plants with a combined capacity of 1.6 million
mt/year in Shadyside, Ohio.
The new complex would be part of a second
wave of new petrochemical projects fueled by cheap feedstocks and the second in
the US Northeast, home to the Marcellus and Utica natural gas shale plays. The
first wave involved eight crackers and 13 PE plants, most of which have come
online.
However, the pandemic has prompted some projects, including
Shell's USD6 billion complex in southwest Pennsylvania, to suspend
construction work. Such projects bring hundreds of contractors to sites, and
social distancing measures deemed necessary to combat the spread of the pandemic
would be difficult to maintain during such work.
Shell in March said the
company temporarily suspended work at the complex, and would consider a phased
construction ramp-up after imposing additional mitigation measures aligned with
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Other projects
that have stopped or slowed work include FG LA's "Sunshine Project" involving
two new 1.2 million mt/year crackers and four new PE plants with a combined 1.6
million mt/year capacity; LyondellBasell's new USD2.4 billion propylene
oxide/tertiary butyl alcohol plant east of Houston; and NOVA Chemicals' new
454,000 mt/year PE facility and cracker expansion in Ontario.
As MRC informed earlier,
PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) fully restarted its No. 2 cracker in Map Ta
Phut in early March,2020, after a planned turnaround. The company
started resuming operations at the cracker by end-February, 2020. The cracker
was shut for maintenance on January 20, 2020. Located at Map Ta Phut, Thailand,
the No. 2 cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 400,000 mt/year. The
company also operates No. 1 cracker at the same site with a capacity of 515,000
tonnes of ethylene and 310,000 tonnes of propylene per year, which was also shut
on 23 January, 2020, for a 40-day turnaround.
Ethylene and propylene are
feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene
(PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report,
estimated PE consumption totalled 383,760 tonnes in the first two month of 2020,
up by 14% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density
polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments increased due to the increased capacity
utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian
market were 192,760 tonnes in January-February 2020, down by 6% year on year.
Homopolymer PP accounted for the main decrease in imports.
PTT Global
Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several
petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a
year. |
