EQUATE receives award for Oyster Creek Project

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The EQUATE Group has added a new global award to its list of accomplishments, as the MEGlobal BOOKRAMEG Oyster Creek Project has been named an Award of Merit winner in the Power/Industrial category of the ENR Best Project Awards of 2020, said the company.

The world-scale 750,000 metric-ton-per-annum monoethylene (MEG) glycol and di-ethylene glycol facility (DEG) was constructed in Oyster Creek, Texas ahead of schedule, below budget and with an excellent safety record. It was the first time the EQUATE Group constructed a new EG facility in the United States.

EQUATE CEO-elect and Sr. Vice President Naser Al-Dousari credited the project team and ownership for working together to build a world class facility in a region that provides access to plentiful feedstocks and global markets.

"We are truly humbled by this honor,” he said. “This project demonstrated what can be accomplished when you bring together global petrochemical leadership with a dedicated expert project team. We thank everyone who played a part in delivering the BOOKRAMEG project to EQUATE’s portfolio and strengthening our ability to reach customers around the world."

The project was co-submitted for award by MEGlobal, Worley (general contractor) and Fluor (construction contractor) and was one of 30 selected from a record number of entries. The submissions were judged by an international panel of industry experts.

"The panel looked at projects in many markets and examined safety performance, innovations, challenges, and design and construction quality – with a special emphasis on the diversity of global project teams and their collaboration,” said Engineering News-Record editor Scott Blair in a news release. “They also considered how the project benefits the local community and/or the construction industry."

The winners of ENR’s Global Best Project Awards will be celebrated at a virtual ceremony in September.

As MRC informed earlier, MEGlobal announced that its Asian Contract Price (ACP) for monoethylene glycol (MEG) will be USD620/MT CFR Asian main ports for arrival September 2020. The September 2020 ACP reflects the short term supply/demand situation in the Asian market. The price is on a CFR (cost and freight) Asia basis.

MEG is mainly used in the production of polyester fibres, resins and films (around 80% of global consumption), followed by use in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin. It is also used as automotive antifreeze.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PET consumption totalled 367,720 tonnes in the first six months of 2020, up by 19% year on year. Russian companies processed 62,910 tonnes of material in June.

The EQUATE Group is a global producer of petrochemicals and the world’s second-largest producer of ethylene glycol (EG). The Group owns and operates industrial complexes in Kuwait, North America and Europe that annually produce over 6 million tons of ethylene, ethylene glycol (EG), polyethylene (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), styrene monomer (SM), paraxylene (PX), heavy aromatics (HA) and benzene (BZ). The EQUATE Group includes EQUATE Petrochemical Company (EQUATE), The Kuwait Olefins Company (TKOC), as well as a number of subsidiaries such as MEGlobal and Equipolymers. Their products are marketed throughout Asia, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The EQUATE Group’s shareholders are Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), The Dow Chemical Company (Dow), Boubyan Petrochemical Company (BPC) and Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company (QPIC). Employing more than 1,500 people worldwide, the EQUATE Group is a leading enterprise that pursues sustainability wherever it operates through partnerships in fields that include the environment, economy and society.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Canada’s Co-op refinery complex in Regina, Saskatchewan, said it has contained and extinguished a fire in ‘Section 1’ of the 135,000 barrel-per-day refinery, with all personnel safe, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The fire was “extinguished quickly”, the refinery said in statement on its website. The Co-op Refinery Complex (CRC) is a wholly-owned subsidiary and a strategic business unit of Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL).

As MRC wrote before, in 2018, China's Sinopec Corp joined a group planning to build an oil refinery in Alberta, an enterprise that would strengthen demand for the Canadian province's heavily discounted crude. Thus, state-owned Sinopec, formally known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, along with an Alberta indigenous group, China State Construction Engineering Corp and Alberta management company Teedrum, plan to build a refinery to process 167,000 barrels per day of crude into gasoline and other products. The SinoCan Global refinery would cost CD8.5 billion, with a financing plan still to be worked out.

We remind that Sinopec SABIC Tianjin Petrochemical Co. (SSTPC), a 50-50 joint venture of Sinopec and SABIC, completed the debottlenecking of its ethylene cracker on 11 July 2020, adding another 30,000 tons/year output to its current capacity. Followed the expansion, the Tianjin based plant become the country's largest compressor unit, producing 1.3 million tons of ethylene annually. The cracker was shut for maintenance and debottlenecking on May 9, 2020.

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

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sasol has issued a trading statement in advance of releasing its financial results for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2020. The company warns of a large annual loss on impairment charges totaling almost 112 billion South African rand (USD6 billion), reported Chemweek.

Sasol says that its performance in the fiscal year was pressured by the COVID-19 pandemic and “a severe decline in crude oil and chemical product prices.” This was partly mitigated by a strong cash cost, working capital, and capital expenditure performance, the company says.

Sasol expects to post a full-year headline loss per share of between R8.72 and R14.86 compared with headline earnings per share of R30.72 in the previous fiscal year.

Sasol says it is taking the impairments following the decline in the long-term macroeconomic outlook, and a fair value impact following the commencement of partnering discussions for the company’s base chemicals assets in the US. Base chemicals, primarily in the US, account for R71.3 billion of the R111.5-billion impairments. Performance Chemicals account for R27.7 billion of the impairments, primarily related to Sasol’s “share of ethylene-producing assets in the US.” The company’s energy business accounts for the remaining R12.5 billion of impairments “across the portfolio,” Sasol says.

The company expects its full-year adjusted EBITDA to drop by between 17% and 37% from R47.6 billion in the prior year, to between R30.0 billion and R39.5 billion. “This results from a 18% decrease in the rand per barrel price of Brent crude oil coupled with much softer global chemical and refining margins impacting our gross margins adversely, especially during the second half of the 2020 financial year,” Sasol says.

Depreciation of R3.9 billion attributable to the production units at Sasol’s Lake Charles Chemicals Project (LCCP) in Louisiana that have reached beneficial operation will also be included in Sasol’s full-year results, the company says.

Sasol is scheduled to publish its results for the full fiscal year on 17 August.

CPChem, ExxonMobil, Hanwha Solutions, Ineos, and LyondellBasell have each expressed an interest in buying a stake in Sasol's US base chemicals assets, primarily the LCCP, according to press reports.

Thus, as MRC informed before, in late July, 2020, Hanwha Solutions (Seoul), formerly Hanwha Chemical Corp., submitted a bid to acquire a 50% stake in Sasol’s USD12.8 billion Lake Charles, Louisiana petrochemical complex. Sasol announced a few months ago that it is seeking partners for the nearly completed project as part of the company’s asset disposal plan to reduce debt. The stake would raise USD1.7-3.4 billion.

The Lake Charles complex is based on a 1.54-million metric tons/year ethane cracker that started production last year. The ethylene will be used in six downstream plants on site to produce ethylene oxide, ethylene glycol, ethoxylates, and low-density and linear low-density polyethylene, as well as Ziegler and Guerbet alcohols. About 10% of the ethylene will be surplus to requirement and sold on the merchant market as well as supply Sasol’s share of its high-density polyethylene joint venture (JV) with Ineos in Texas. The 50/50 JV is designed to produce 470,000 metric tons/year.

Sasol says that the last remaining production unit to come online at the Lake Charles complex is a low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plant, which is now scheduled to start production in October this year. The 420,000-metric tons/year LDPE plant was damaged during a fire in January 2020.

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

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.

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

MOSCOW (MRC) -- German chemicals giant BASF opened its first Footwear Innovation Center in the world in Changhua County, said Taiwannews.

The facility, a 650-square-meter area within a factory run by Longterm Concept Industry Corporation (LTC), includes interactive exhibits and design labs as well as a manufacturing zone, the company said in a news release.

Taiwan was chosen as a location due to its long-standing reputation as a footwear manufacturer and the prevalence of design talent, said Andy Postlethwaite, the company’s senior vice president of performance materials Asia Pacific.

The center’s functions include the faster testing of material innovations and the application of new designs to manufacture brand new products for BASF’s partners and clients, the company said.

As MRC reported earlier, BASF Total's cracker in Port Arthur, Texas, is undergoing maintenance and expected to restart on 23 July, 2020, according to the company's statement in a filing with Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). An unexpected outage occurred at BASF Total Petrochemical’s joint-venture (JV) olefins unit at Port Arthur, Texas, on Thursday afternoon, 11 June, 2020. The cause of the outage is being investigated, with a compressor shutdown cited as a possible factor, according to TCEQ filing. The JV’s steam cracker at Port Arthur has a production capacity of more than 1 million metric tons/year of ethylene and 544,000 metric tons/year of propylene, according to IHS Markit data.

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

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.

BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries. BASF generated sales of EUR59 billion in 2019.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rebounding petrochemical demand in northwest Europe, following a second-quarter slump amid lockdowns to check the spread of COVID-19, boosted July imports of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by 230% compared to the prior month, reported Chemweek with reference to OPIS data.

LPG intake as feedstock in northwest Europe soared to an estimated 650,000 metric tons from 282,000 metric tons in June. By comparison, LPG cargo imports into northwest Europe were as low as 258,000 metric tons in August 2017, according to OPIS data. North Sea LPG supplies entering the feedstock pool totaled 246,000 metric tons, equivalent to 38% of total July intake, compared to 68% in June. Overall northwest European LPG trade was estimated at 980,000 metric tons in July, up 69% from 580,000 metric tons in June.

Demand uncertainty through June from end-user ethylene and propylene markets arising from the pandemic prompted steam cracker operators to run at reduced rates and curb intake. Spot ethylene at the start of July marked a 20% discount to the monthly term price and weakened to a 30% discount by the end of the month, according to IHS Markit PetroChemWire data. Meanwhile, propylene strengthened through July, shifting to parity to the monthly term price in Europe from a 10-12% discount at the start of the month, the data showed.

As demand began to pick up, feedstock intake sprang higher in July. The contango price structure for propane steepened sharply for July/August, with August pegged at USD7/metric ton above July in mid-June, before widening to USD11/metric ton by the end of that month. The propane/naphtha spread for July also broadened quickly, hitting minus USD109/metric ton by the start of July from minus USD38/metric ton in mid-June, supporting the economics for petchem buyers to increase their intake of LPG as feedstock.

The remainder of the feedstock intake in July saw 14% arrive from the US East Coast, down from 23% in June. A key part of the surge in imports though, came from the US Gulf Coast, which provided nearly half of intake at 46%, up from zero in June. Dwindling exports from the Russian Baltic port of Ust Luga provided just 2% of northwest European LPG intake in July, compared to 9% in June. The retail and refining sector saw LPG intake at 183,000 metric tons in July, up from 116,000 metric tons in June, according to OPIS data.

LPG export cargoes from northwest Europe totaled 127,000 metric tons in July, down from 180,000 metric tons in June. Exports moved to the Baltic region, the US East Coast, Spain, Morocco, and Turkey.

OPIS is an IHS Markit company.

As MRC wrote previously, unplanned outages at Sabic's Wilton, UK, cracker and Borealis' Stenungsund, Sweden, cracker may cause availability shortages in the European propylene coastal market. The Wilton cracker, which has an annual propylene capacity of 415,000 mt was shut on June 17 due to technical issues and was not expected to come back online for another two weeks.

Borealis' Stenungsund cracker unit has remained offline longer than initially anticipated, after it was shut following a force majeure declaration at the site on May 11. Sources said that the unit has been offline longer than initially expected with no confirmed startup date. The Stenungsund cracker has a propylene capacity of 150,000 mt/year.

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

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
MRC