Nouryon opens integrated services office in Houston

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nouryon says it has opened a new integrated services office for its North America business in Houston, Texas, reported Chemweek.

The facility will employ 50 people initially, covering logistics, customer service, engineering, procurement, manufacturing support, and sustainability, with more than 100 to be employed eventually, it says.

The company has three major chemical production sites and employs nearly 700 people in the Houston area, according to Nouryon. The company opened the world’s first metal alkyls production site in Battleground, Texas, in 1959 and later added sites in Pasadena and Houston, it says.

"We have a long history with Houston, and this is the right time for Nouryon to build on our successful relationship with the city," says Charles Shaver, CEO at Nouryon. "While the world faces one of its greatest economic challenges, we are demonstrating our commitment to Houston by bringing in high quality jobs and future employment opportunities," he says.

As MRC wrote previously, in February 2019, Nouryon (formerly AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals) announced that it would license its innovative continuous initiator dosing (CiD) technology to Karpatnaftochim, Ukraine’s largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer. Nouryon’s patented CiD technology allows PVC producers to increase reactor output by up to 40 percent, improve product quality, and make the production process intrinsically safer - all with minimum capital expenditure.

According to ICIS-MRC Price report, Ukrainian company Karpatneftekhim (Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk region) has increased prices of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) for July deliveries to the domestic market by USD70-80/tonne under the pressure from higher feedstock prices.
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OMV, partner build photovoltaic plant in Austria

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Austrian oil and petrochemicals major OMV and electricity company VERBUND on Wednesday began construction of a photovoltaic (PV) power plant at Schonkirchen, northeast of Vienna, said the company.

The project's total power generating capacity will be around 14.25 GWh. Its first phase, with 10.96 GWh, is due to start up in November. Financial details were not disclosed. Austria sees the expansion of PVs as central to achieving its renewable electricity targets.

By 2030, all electricity produced in Austria “should come from renewable sources,” said Wolfgang Anzengruber, VERBUND’s chairman. OMV and VERBUND are currently also working on a “green hydrogen” project, called UpHy, which is looking at producing hydrogen for use in road vehicles and refinery processes.

On a 13.3-hectare (133,200 m2) compound owned by OMV, a photovoltaic plant with a PV capacity of 11.4 MWp will be built in Schonkirchen in the first phase of construction. The east-west facing solar park will use 34,600 PV modules to produce around 10.96 GWh of solar power, corresponding to the annual electricity consumption of some 3,400 households and saving around 8,000 metric tons of CO2. Start-up is planned for the end of November 2020.

The final phase of construction will see another 10,400 PV modules added to the plant. This will increase the total capacity to 14.85 MWp, generating around 14.25 GWh. This is enough to meet the annual power demand of 4,400 households and will save an additional 2,400 metric tons of CO2 per year.

As MRC informed earlier, in March 2020, OMV signed agreement to increase its shareholding in Borealis to 75%, repositioning in a low-carbon world.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 595,170 tonnes in the first five month of 2020, up by 10% year on year. Deliveries of all ethylene polymers, except for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), rose partially because of an increase in capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 457,930 tonnes in January-May 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Deliveris of exclusively PP random copolymer increased.

OMV (Osterreichische Mineralolverwaltung AG) is an Austrian oil company, the largest in Central Europe. Headquarters - in Vienna.
MRC

Sinopec resumes operations at Tianjin refinery after overhaul

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec’s Tianjin refinery has resumed operations after a two-month overhaul, reported Reuters with reference to the refinery's statement.

In northern Chinese port city of Tianjin, the refinery and petrochemical complex has oil refining capacity of 12.5 million tons per year, or 250,000 barrels per day (bpd).

The refinery also added a 52,000-bpd residue hydrotreating unit and a 56,000-bpd catalytic cracking unit to restructure product output and improve gasoline and jet kerosene yield.

As MRC informed earlier, Sinopec Tianjin Co (Tianjin United Chemical) is in plans to bring on-stream its naphtha cracker following a turnaround. The company was to resume operations at the cracker by early-July, 2020. The cracker was shut for maintenance on May 9, 2020. Located at Tianjin, China, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 240,000 mt/year and propylene capacity of 100,000 mt/year.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 595,170 tonnes in the first five month of 2020, up by 10% year on year. Deliveries of all ethylene polymers, except for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), rose partially because of an increase in capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 457,930 tonnes in January-May 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Deliveris of exclusively PP random copolymer increased.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group"s key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
MRC

COVID-19 - News digest as of 10.07.2020

1. Covestro issues preliminary earnings forecast, will beat consensus

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Covestro says its forecast preliminary EBITDA for the second quarter will be above market consensus at EUR124 million (USD141 million), with an expected preliminary net loss for the period of EUR60 million also beating consensus, said Chemweek. Ahead of the scheduled release of its second-quarter and half-year results on 23 July, Covestro says in the course of preparing its half-year report that “preliminary key financial data deviate from capital market expectations.” The market expectations are based on the latest consensus estimates of financial analysts provided by Vara Research, it says. Covestro’s estimate of a preliminary net loss of EUR60 million for the quarter compares to a steeper estimated consensus loss of EUR107 million, while its forecast EBITDA of EUR124 million compares to a lower consensus estimate of €80 million, according to the company. Preliminary sales are forecast by Covestro to come in lower than the consensus estimate of EUR2.22 billion at EUR2.16 billion, it says. Preliminary sales volumes were down 22% in the quarter, with consensus putting the decline at 22.5%. In April Covestro reported a fall of almost 90% year on year in its first-quarter net income to EUR20 million on sales that declined more than 12% to EUR2.8 billion, with all business segments hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and lower selling prices.



MRC

Crude oil futures slip as COVID-19 cases rise

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Crude oil futures were trading lower mid-morning July 7 in Asia as the rising number of new infections in the US continued to dampen market sentiment, overturning overnight gains. However, the decline was limited by Saudi Aramco's announcement of a hike to its official selling prices for August crude cargoes to Asia, reported S&P Global.

At 11:13 am Singapore time (0313 GMT), ICE Brent September crude futures were down 20 cents/b (0.46%) from the July 6 settle at $42.90/b, while the NYMEX August light sweet crude contract was down by 17 cents/b (0.42%) at USD40.46/b.

"Crude is trading up modestly after the US holiday weekend benefiting from a robust Asian opening in equity markets and seemingly shrugging off the possible demand implications of the spike in COVID-19 cases across the US and other countries such as Australia," Stephen Innes, chief global markets analyst at AxiCorp, said in a note July 7.

Saudi Aramco's announcement of a hike in official selling price differentials for its August crude oil exports to Asia by USD1/b for all grades on July 6 had also helped to lift market sentiment. In a survey by S&P Global Platts last week, market participants had expect the producer to raise its August OSP differential of its Arab Light crude by between 80 cents/b and USD3/b.

Meanwhile, the climb in the number of coronavirus cases in the US continued to weigh on market sentiment. California, the most populous US state, saw hospitalizations jump 50% over the past two weeks, just as the number of new infections soared and registered a record increase of more than 11, 000 cases on July 6, according to media reports.

"The lower fatality rates suggest that the re-imposing of more extensive statewide or countrywide lockdown measures will be unlikely, so the economic cost from the second wave will be far less than the beat down in March," Innes added.

Meanwhile, the US' domestic gasoline consumption was also down by more than 20% year on year during the long Independence Day weekend, when increased travel is usually the norm. This could signal that demand for gasoline might be lackluster during the summer months ahead and expectations of a quick recovery unlikely.

"The refining profit margin for gasoline and diesel remains unattractive, and elevated inventories and weaker product demand are not leaving any hope for a material rebound," the ANZ analysts said in a note July 7.

Market participants will look for fresh cues from the inventory report by the American Petroleum Institute and the US Energy Information Administration, due later July 7 and July 8, respectively.

As MRC informed before, 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 595,170 tonnes in the first five month of 2020, up by 10% year on year. Deliveries of all ethylene polymers, except for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), rose partially because of an increase in capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 457,930 tonnes in January-May 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Deliveris of exclusively PP random copolymer increased.
MRC