MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil (Irvine, Texas) and Global Clean Energy Holdings (Long Beach, California) have signed an agreement for ExxonMobil to purchase 2.5 million barrels of renewable diesel annually for five years from Global Clean Energy Holding’s converted California refinery, beginning in 2022, reported Chemweek.
The renewable diesel will be sourced from a refinery acquired by Global Clean Energy in Bakersfield, California, which is being retooled to produce renewable diesel from Global Clean Energy’s patented varieties of camelina, a fallow land crop that does not displace food crops, and other non-petroleum feedstocks. Following scheduled production startup in 2022, ExxonMobil plans to distribute the renewable diesel within California and potentially to other domestic and international markets.
“Our agreement with Global Clean Energy builds on ExxonMobil’s longstanding efforts to develop and offer products that help meet society’s energy needs while reducing environmental impacts,” said Bryan Milton, president of ExxonMobil Fuels and Lubricants Company. “Chemically similar to petroleum-based diesel, renewable diesel can be readily blended for use in engines on the market today.”
In addition to camelina, various non-petroleum feedstocks, including used cooking oil, soybean oil, distillers’ corn oil, and other renewable sources will be refined to produce the renewable diesel.
Based on analysis of California Air Resources Board (CARB) data, renewable diesel from various non-petroleum feedstocks can provide life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions reductions of approximately 40–80% compared to petroleum-based diesel.
As MRC informed earlier, ExxonMobil aims to ease global oil and gas production shut-ins by about 40% to 200,000 b/d of oil equivalent as demand for transportation fuels slowly recovers from a second-quarter plunge. About 70% of the shut-ins expected to persist into Q3 are from government mandates, with the rest being market-based cuts, the company said.
We remind that the company plans to shut its cracker on Jurong Island with the capacity of 1 mln mt/year of ethylene and 450,000 mt/year of propylene for a 40-45 day turnaround in August, 2020. The exact dates of the shutdown were not announced.
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.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world"s oil and about 2% of the world"s energy.
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