Shell, Murphy evacuating non-essential workers from US Gulf due to storm

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Murphy Oil Corp began evacuating non-essential workers from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico because of the threat from Tropical Storm Cristobal, reported Reuters.

Shell said its production and drilling operations in the US-regulated northern Gulf were unaffected despite the evacuations.

Gulf Coast spot gasoline prices remained steady, traders said. Gulf CBOB gasoline traded on Thursday at 12.50 cents per gallon below the futures benchmark, little changed from Wednesday.

The storm’s impact on prices at the pump is expected to be limited because of the loss of demand from the COVID-19 pandemic, said an analyst with Gas Buddy.

“We aren’t expecting an impact on gas prices from Cristobal at this time given its relatively weak forecast,” said Patrick De Haan at Gas Buddy.

Five companies are removing workers from the Gulf because of Cristobal, which is forecast to pass through offshore oil production areas before striking the Louisiana coast by Monday, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

BP Plc said on Wednesday that workers were being evacuated as it shuts in production at its Thunder Horse, Na Kika and Atlantis platforms. The company is also pulling non-essential workers from the Mad Dog platform, but production was unaffected.

Norwegian state-oil company Equinor ASA and Occidental Petroleum Corp began evacuating non-essential workers on Wednesday. Equinor plans to shut the Titan platform on Friday, if necessary.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port LLC (LOOP), Exxon Mobil Corp , Chevron Corp and Hess Corp said their operations were normal.

The US Energy Information Administration expects the Gulf of Mexico to account for 15% of total US crude oil production in 2020.

As MRC wrote previously, Tropical Storm Cristobal forced ports to close in three states in Mexico's Bay of Campeche area June 3, although there has been no major impact on oil, gas or power generation infrastructure.

We remind that Royal Dutch Shell Plc restarted the crude distillation unit, coker and gasoline-producing cat cracker at its 225,300 barrel-per-day (bpd) Norco, Louisiana, refinery. Shell is restarting the hydrocracker, while the reformer and naphtha hydrotreater will remain shut for previously planned work, the sources said. The coker is scheduled to undergo planned work beginning next week, but is expected to remain in operation.

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 721,290 tonnes in the first four month of 2020, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments grew partially because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 347,440 tonnes in January-April 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Supply exclusively of PP random copolymer increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- S-Oil has taken off-stream its No. 2 Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) unit for a turnaround, according to Apic-Online.

A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that, the company has started maintenance at the unit on June 4, 2020. The unit is slated to remain off-line for about four weeks.

Located at Onsan in South Korea, the No. 2 MTBE unit has a production capacity of 370,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, S-Oil's new residue upgrading complex (RUC) and olefin downstream complex (ODC) was inaugurated at the company's Onsan Refinery in Ulsan, South Korea, in July, 2019. The project, which cost around USD4-billion, involved construction of a plant to upgrade low-value residue oil to high-value gasoline and propylene. The propylene is to be used for the production of 405,000 t/y of polypropylene (PP) and 300,000 t/y of propylene oxide.

Separately, S-Oil and Saudi Aramco, a majority shareholder in S-Oil, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on a USD6-billion steam cracker and olefin downstream project. Completion is expected by 2024. PCN earlier reported that the project would include a 1.5-million-t/y steam cracker, which would produce ethylene and other basic petrochemicals from naphtha and refinery off-gas. The downstream units would include the production of polyethylene and PP.

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

According to MRC"s ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 721,290 tonnes in the first four month of 2020, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments grew partially because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 347,440 tonnes in January-April 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Supply exclusively of PP random copolymer increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Oil prices rose on Friday after an unexpected fall in the monthly US jobless rate and OPEC’s decision to bring forward to Saturday discussions on whether to extend record production cuts, reported Reuters.

Brent crude futures were up USD2.40, or 6.0%, at USD42.39 a barrel as of 1243 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose USD2.05, or 5.48%, to USD39.46 a barrel.

The US Labor Department showed a surprise fall in the jobless rate to 13.3% last month from 14.7% in April.

Brent has risen 17% since Friday to reach a three-month high, settling in a range more comfortable for producers like Russia. The contract has more than doubled since it crashed to as low as USD15.98 a barrel on April 22.

WTI is up 11% from last Friday’s close, leaving benchmarks on track for a sixth week of gains, lifted by the output cuts and signs of improving fuel demand as countries ease lockdown measures imposed to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.

Russia’s energy ministry said on Friday a video conference of a group of leading oil producers, known as OPEC+, would be held on Saturday.

The market was hopeful that some laggard countries may have agreed to align themselves with the deal.

OPEC+ had said they would bring forward the meeting, which had been scheduled for next week, should Iraq and others agree to boost their adherence to existing supply cuts.

“Prices are up with the meeting scheduled for tomorrow. There was lots of confusion ... so it looks like they found a way forward,” Olivier Jakob at Petromatrix consultancy said.

Two OPEC+ sources said Saudi Arabia and Russia had agreed to extend the deeper cuts until the end of July but said Riyadh was also pushing to extend them until the end of August.

If OPEC+ fails to agree to roll over the current output curbs, that would mean the cut could drop back to 7.7 million bpd from July through December as previously agreed.

Adding support was the first tropical storm of the season in the US Gulf of Mexico. Storm Cristobal is expected to enter the central Gulf this week, an area rich with offshore platforms, and could see landfall along Louisiana’s refinery row on Sunday.

US energy companies have already closed some production. “It’s not big, but there will be some shut-ins,” Jakob said.

As MRC informed previously, global oil consumption cut by up to a third in Q1 2020. What happens next in the oil market depends on how quickly and completely the global economy emerges from lockdown, and whether the recessionary hit lingers through the rest of this year and into 2021.

Earlier this year, BP said the deadly coronavirus outbreak could cut global oil demand growth by 40 per cent in 2020, putting pressure on Opec producers and Russia to curb supplies to keep prices in check.

We remind that, in September 2019, six world's major petrochemical companies in Flanders, Belgium, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and the Netherlands (Trilateral Region) announced the creation of a consortium to jointly investigate how naphtha or gas steam crackers could be operated using renewable electricity instead of fossil fuels. The Cracker of the Future consortium, which includes BASF, Borealis, BP, LyondellBasell, SABIC and Total, aims to produce base chemicals while also significantly reducing carbon emissions. The companies agreed to invest in R&D and knowledge sharing as they assess the possibility of transitioning their base chemical production to renewable electricity.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 721,290 tonnes in the first four month of 2020, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments grew partially because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 347,440 tonnes in January-April 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Supply exclusively of PP random copolymer increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- As oil and gas companies began shutting offshore production before the first tropical storm of the season in the US. Gulf of Mexico, experts said restarting wells and refineries will take longer and prove more costly this year because of COVID-19, reported Reuters.

Well shut-ins typically last a few days or weeks at most, but oil companies have adopted stringent virus precautions for refinery and offshore staff, including frequent health checks, travel restrictions, onsite protective gear, and longer work stints with pre-departure quarantines.

More time-consuming evacuations and slower restarts could lengthen post-storm recoveries, and potentially deliver a knockout blow to small offshore facilities, said William Turner, a vice president at research and consultancy Welligence Energy Analytics.

“There is an economic hit when a hurricane comes through,” said Turner, and for smaller producers strained by low prices a bad storm may be the last straw for their production.

“Some assets won’t be worth turning back on,” he said.

US energy companies face their first test of hurricane restarts under COVID-19 this week from the approaching Tropical Storm Cristobal. Three have already evacuated workers and shut some production.

National Hurricane Center forecasters expect up to 19 named Atlantic storms this year with three to six becoming major hurricanes, above the average 12 storms and three major hurricanes.

Cristobal was expected to enter the central Gulf last week, an area rich with offshore platforms, and could have seen landfall along Louisiana’s refinery last Sunday.

Gulf Coast refineries and seaports account for 45% of US oil processing capacity and the majority of energy exports. Some 1.93 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, or 15% of the US total, also comes from US Gulf of Mexico waters.

COVID-19 already has raised costs and added travel headaches for offshore crews and complicated working conditions for refinery operators. Royal Dutch Shell hired helicopters to individually ferry out three workers on the same platform suspected of having the virus to isolate them from one another, said a Shell spokeswoman

Exxon Mobil Corp recently required a repair crew to quarantine for two weeks before allowing them to access its Destiny platform off the coast of Guyana, the country’s Environmental Protection Agency chief, Dr. Vincent Adams, told Reuters.

“Repairs have been necessarily delayed in order to observe travel restrictions and safety and isolation protocols related to COVID-19,” said Exxon spokesman Todd Spitler.

Some 120 offshore Gulf of Mexico workers have tested positive for the virus this year, and a greater number were evacuated preemptively, according to a National Ocean Industries Association spokesman.

Chevron Corp and others have lengthened offshore crew schedules to at least 21 days from 14, closed gyms and staggered meal breaks to reduce the risk of coronavirus outbreaks. Workers who spike a fever or exhibit signs of illness are whisked off for onshore medical care.

Post-hurricane restarts will also change. BHP Group quarantines employees heading to its offshore platforms in a Louisiana hotel and expects workers evacuated from rigs during storms to stay at the same or another onshore hotel until the danger passes and they can return to the platform.

Under normal circumstances, “we do not expect the challenges associated with COVID-19 to significantly impact our production deferrals,” said BHP spokeswoman Judy Dane.

At Gulf Coast refineries, the crews assigned to remain onsite during a storm will wear masks if they cannot be six feet (1.8 metres) away from another person while working at control boards, a person familiar with the matter said.

The “ride-out” team will also have temperature checks before entering the facility, and be required to self-report any symptoms of the illness, the person said.

“CDC-recommended guidelines and safety practices, including daily self-health assessments, limited gathering sizes, social distancing, wearing masks where appropriate, will remain in effect at our refineries,” said Lillian Riojas, spokeswoman for Valero Energy Corp.

As MRC reported earlier, in May 2020, ExxonMobil said it had increased production of critical raw materials for masks, gowns and hand sanitiser used by medical professionals and first responders leading the efforts to combat the global Covid-19 pandemic. The company increased its capability to manufacture specialised polypropylene (PP), used in medical masks and gowns, by about 1,000 tonnes per month, which is enough to enable production of up to 200 million medical masks, or 20 million gowns.

We also remind that 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 721,290 tonnes in the first four month of 2020, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments grew partially because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 347,440 tonnes in January-April 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Supply exclusively of PP random copolymer increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arkema says it has joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), an organization of more than 200 businesses working to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world, reported Chemweek.

Arkema is the latest of a growing list of chemical companies such as BASF, Evonik Industries, DSM, and AkzoNobel that have joined WBCSD.

“More than ever, in a world faced with economic, environmental, and social challenges, our mission as an industrial company is to use our expertise in materials science to facilitate the transition to a sustainable world. Together with other WBCSD partners, we will be able to accelerate this transition and provide innovative solutions that contribute to the sustainable development goals defined by the UN,” says Thierry Le Henaff, chairman and CEO at Arkema.

Arkema adopted a new climate plan, in line with the Paris Agreement, at the beginning of this year, to contribute to a global warming target of “well below 2°C” and reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions 38% by 2030, the company says.

As MRC reported before, Arkema said earlier this week that it has finalized the divestment of its functional polyolefins business to SK Global Chemical. The divestment was announced last year. Arkema says the sale forms part of its strategy to refocus the group’s activities on specialty materials.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 721,290 tonnes in the first four month of 2020, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments grew partially because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 347,440 tonnes in January-April 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Supply exclusively of PP random copolymer increased.

Arkema is a global manufacturer in specialty chemicals and advanced materials, with 3 business segments - High Performance Materials, Industrial Specialties, and Coating Solutions - and globally recognized brands. The Group reports annual sales of EUR8.8 billion. Buoyed by the collective energy of its 20,000 employees, Arkema operates in close to 55 countries.
MRC