Unplanned outage reported at No. 1 PP unit of Dongguan Grand Resource Science and Tech

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dongguan Grand Resource Science and Tech, has shut its No. 1 polypropylene (PP) unit for an unplanned maintenance, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company halted operations at the unit on May 17, 2020. The unit is expected to remain off-line for a period of around 3-4 days.

Located in Guangdong, China, the No. 1 PP unit has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, the company conducted maintenance works at No. 1 and 2 PP units from 6 January to 16 January, 2020. Located in Guangdong, China, the PP plant comprising two units have a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year each.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market was 267,630 tonnes in January-March 2020, down 20% year on year. Homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers accounted for the main decrease in imports.

Dongguan Grand Resource Science and Technology Co Ltd is owned by Juzhengyuan Energy (Shenzhen, Guangdong, China). On 26 October 2019, Dongguan Grand Resource’s (Dongguan, Guangdong, China) integrated complex for polypropylene production in Dongguan officially started up.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dow Inc. has activated its local emergency center in Michigan and “is implementing its flood preparedness plan which includes the safe shutdown of operating units on site,” the company said after two dams failed upstream of its Midland, Michigan, headquarters, reported Bloomberg.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is already managing a public health crisis in one of the states that has been hard hit by Covid-19, announced an emergency declaration in response to the dam collapse. She told people to evacuate the area around Midland, urging those in the flooding zones to get to a shelter.

“In the next 12 to 15 hours, downtown Midland could be under nine feet of water,” Whitmer said. “To go through this in the midst of a global pandemic is almost unthinkable.”

Dow said that “only essential Dow staff needed to monitor the situation and manage any issues as a result of the flooding remain on site.” Other companies with operations at Dow’s Midland complex include DuPont and Corteva Agriscience. The companies are working together on their response, a Dow spokesperson said.

The Edenville Dam, at the base of nearby Wixom Lake, failed amid high floodwaters in the area, sending water gushing through a now-gaping hole near its spillway. A second one, the Sanford Dam at the base of Sanford Lake, had also failed, according to the National Weather Service, which issued an alert advising of “extremely dangerous flash flooding” in the area.

The Tittabawassee River that flows below those lakes, through Midland, crested at nearly 34 feet in a 1986 flood that saw Dow Chemical shutter nearly all of its local operations. Floodwaters in Midland are expected to reach nearly 4 feet higher than that on Wednesday, the Midland Daily News said.

As MRC informed earlier, USA based Dow Chemical is planning to shut three polyethylene (PE) plants in the USA and Argentina to avoid piling inventories amid sluggish global demand conditions due to the COVID-19 related lockdown.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 557,060 tonnes in the first three month of 2020, up by 7% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments rose because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. Demand for LDPE subsided.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene (PS), polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Polish refining and petrochemical company PKN Orlen has purchased a license and basic design for use in an isopropanol (IPA) plant it plans to build at its site in Plock, said Chemanager.

The facility is part of program to expand phenol output at the site. In February, Honeywell announced it was licensing its UOP Q-Max and phenol 3G technologies to Orlen for a 200,000 t/y phenol unit. The acetone byproduct will be used to feed the new IPA plant.

“The project is an example of our well thought-out strategy of shifting our portfolio from commodity to specialty products in response to growing customer expectations,” said Zbigniew Leszczynski, member of Orlen’s management board, development.

Orlen added that if the project goes ahead, it will be the world’s fifth company to implement the IPA technology. It plans to begin basic engineering design work and launch the selection process to secure a general contractor in the coming months.

IPA has a wide range of applications, including for hand sanitizers, which has seen unprecedented demand because of the coronavirus pandemic. Orlen said that as well as adding value to its business and the Polish economy, the IPA plant would also make the country more secure in the event of a future epidemic.

Catherine MacGregor, president of Technip Energies, said: “Our innovative IPA process not only addresses an urgent global need, but its flexibility also provides the option to integrate the production and purification of IPA with our process for converting acetone to cumene (ATC), enabling phenol producers to balance solvent production.”

As MRC informed earlier, in H1 September 2019, Honeywell announced that PKN ORLEN had licensed the UOP MaxEne process, which can increase production of ethylene and aromatics and improve the flexibility of gasoline production. The project, for the PKN ORLEN facility in Plock, Poland, currently is in the basic engineering stage. Honeywell UOP, a leading provider of technologies for the oil and gas industry, first commercialized the UOP MaxEne process in 2013. The process enables refiners and petrochemical producers to direct molecules within the naphtha feed to the processes that deliver the greatest value and improve yields of fuels and petrochemicals.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's 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.

Several companies have announced plans in recent weeks to expand or shift production to make IPA, including Ineos, ExxonMobil, Honeywell, Huntsman, Seqens, among others.
MRC

1. Borealis decision to discontinue world-scale polyethylene project in Kazakhstan

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Borealis says it will not proceed with the development of a multi-billion-dollar integrated steam cracker and polyethylene (PE) project in Kazakhstan, said the company.“The decision to discontinue this project is based on a thorough assessment of all aspects of the prospective venture and impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic as well as the increased uncertainty of future market assumptions,” Borealis states.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A fire broke out on Tuesday at a catalyst plant in LG Chem’s petrochemical complex in the southwestern city of South Korea, leaving one worker dead and two injured, reported Reuters with reference to the company and a fire station official's statements.

The fire, which occurred at LG Chem’s catalyst plant in the southwestern city of Seosan at around 2:25 p.m. (0525 GMT), has been contained, a fire station official from the Seosan Fire Station told Reuters.

LG Chem said the cause of the fire was likely to be spontaneous ignition of powder at the plant, but the company is looking into the exact cause.

In early May, a gas leaked from the South Korean petrochemical maker-owned factory in India, killing more than 10 people and making more than hundreds of people sick. Last week, LG Chem sent a delegation to India to investigate the cause of the incident.

As MRC wrote previously, LG Chem, a South Korean petrochemical major, has reduced its operational rates of its cracker to around 90-95% starting January 2020 due to weaker economic fundamentals. Based in Daesan, South Korea, the cracker is able to produce 1.27 million tons/year of ethylene and 650,000 tons/year of propylene. The company increased capacity utilisation at this cracker to 100% on 10 March, 2020, in order to supply ethylene to Lotte Chemical.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 557,060 tonnes in the first three month of 2020, up by 7% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments rose because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. Demand for LDPE subsided. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 267,630 tonnes in January-March 2020, down 20% year on year. Homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers accounted for the main decrease in imports.

LG Chem Ltd., often referred to as LG Chemical, is the largest Korean chemical company and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. According to ICIS report, it is 15th biggest chemical company in the world in 2011. It has eight domestic factories and global network of 29 business locations in 15 countries. LG Chem is a manufacturer, supplier, and exporter of petrochemical goods, IT&E Materials and Energy Solutions.
MRC