US emergency oil reserve site suffers "considerable" damage from Hurricane Laura

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The US Energy Department said that the West Hackberry site of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “sustained considerable damage” from Hurricane Laura and that detailed estimates of the harm done should be out later this week, reported Reuters.

The department shut two of the four SPR sites ahead of Laura and the other site, in Big Hill, Texas is back up and fully operational, it said. The West Hackberry is without access to commercial power. “There is no threat to the integrity of the geologically sealed underground caverns, and no danger of contamination or concern for spills,” a department official said.

As MRC wrote previously, most chemical production facilities in the region between Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, have shut down in preparation for Hurricane Laura, which was forecast to make landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border last Wednesday night or early Thursday. Several olefin crackers and associated derivative polymer units have been shut down, as has about 2.5 million b/d of refining capacity.

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

Restoring power to Phillips 66 Lake Charles refinery may take three weeks

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Restoring electricity to the Phillips 66’s 260,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Lake Charles, Louisiana, refinery could take up to three weeks, reported Reuters with reference to sources familiar with plant operations.

The refinery was shut on Aug. 25 as Hurricane Laura was forecast to make landfall southwest of Lake Charles. Laura, packing winds of 150 miles per hour (241 kmh) passed over the Lake Charles area on Thursday.

“Phillips 66 does not comment on rumors or speculation,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Local power provider Entergy said on Monday that the seven power-line corridors to Lake Charles received catastrophic damage from Laura.

Phillips 66 is performing assessments of the Lake Charles refinery and chemical plant complex, which is located in Westlake, Louisiana. The assessments were hampered for at least two days by a chemical fire at a nearby plant, the sources said.

As MRC informed before, last month, US refiner Phillips 66 said it plans to reconfigure its refinery in Rodeo, California to produce renewable fuels from used cooking oil, fats, greases and soybean oils.

We remind that US-based Phillips 66 remains open to developing another ethane cracker for its Chevron Phillips Chemical (CP Chem) joint venture, the refiner's CEO said in March 2018.

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

Mitsubishi Forms Alliance with Refinverse In Efforts to Pursue a Circular Economy

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. (MCC), as part of its efforts to pursue a circular economy, has entered into a capital and business alliance with Refinverse, operator of an industrial waste collection, treatment and recycling business, according to Apic-online.

Refinverse, which started out collecting and transporting construction-related waste for treatment, has built an integrated system extending from waste treatment to production of resin, thereby supplying a diverse range of recycled resources.

The alliance will enable MCC to combine Refinverse's know-how regarding all aspects of industrial waste with its own technologies and knowledge to promote appropriate recycling and effective use of waste.

It will also allow MCC to further its understanding of final disposal methods for its products and leverage that understanding to design materials that are more environmentally friendly, MCC explained.

Refinverse has granted stock to MCC through third-party allotment to raise capital, and the two companies have signed an outsourcing agreement.

Accordingly, on 1 Apr. 2020, MCC established a Circular Economy Dept. to promote the proposal and commercialization of solutions relating to the circular economy and proactively pursuing tie-ups with external parties including customers, academic institutions and start-ups to contribute to the creation of a sustainable society.

As MRC reported earlier, Mitsubishi Chemical's naphtha cracker has being operating normally following a planned outage. The company resumed operations at the cracker on July 7, 2020. The cracker was shut for maintenance on May 9, 2020. Located at Kashima, Japan, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 540,000 mt/year and a propylene capacity of 270,000 mt/year.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing 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.

Mitsubishi Chemical with headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, is a diversified chemical company involved in petrochemicals, polymers, agrochemicals, speciality chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The company's main focus is on three business pillars: petrochemicals, performance and functional products, and health care.
MRC

Trinseo, Coexpan to bring recycled PS to the dairy market in 2022

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Trinseo (Berwyn, Pennsylvania) has partnered with Coexpan (Madrid, Spain) to validate technologies for the production of recycled polystyrene (PS) suitable for use in form-fill-seal (FFS) dairy applications, according to Chemweek.

Using materials and input supplied by Trinseo, Coexpan will perform testing at Innotech, its innovation technology center. Trinseo and Coexpan expect industrial volumes to be in production by the third quarter of 2022.

“The dairy FFS packaging market, which has historically preferred the use of polystyrene due to its technical superiority over alternative polymers, has recently seen greater interest in alternative materials owing to misperceptions regarding the circularity and recyclability of PS,” the companies say in a joint statement. “PS offers a unique potential for not only closed-loop recycling, but also a lower carbon footprint and extended life cycle due to its simplicity and ease to fully recycle, giving polystyrene a major competitive advantage versus all alternatives.”

Coexpan, a division of Grupo Lantero, specializes in the manufacture of rigid plastic sheets and thermoformed products for the packaging industry. The company has 13 production plants in 8 countries in Europe and Latin America.

As MRC informed before, Trinseo, a global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex binders, and synthetic rubber, and its affiliate companies in Europe, have announced a price increase for all PS, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) and acrylonitrile-styrene copolymer (SAN) in Europe. Effective August 1, 2020, or as existing contract terms allow, the contract and spot prices for the products listed below rose as follows:

- STYRON general purpose polystyrene grades (GPPS) -- by EUR30 per metric ton;
- STYRON and STYRON A-Tech and STYRON X- Tech and STYRON C- Tech high impact polystyrene grades (HIPS) - by EUR30 per metric ton;
- MAGNUM ABS resins - by EUR50 per metric ton;
- TYRIL SAN resins - by EUR40 per metric ton.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics was 225,870 tonnes in the first half of 2020, down by 8% year on year. PS consumption increased by 2% year on year in June 2020, totalling 39,590 tonnes.

Trinseo is a global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber. Trinseo's technology is used by customers in industries such as home appliances, automotive, building & construction, carpet, consumer electronics, consumer goods, electrical & lighting, medical, packaging, paper & paperboard, rubber goods and tires. Formerly known as Styron, Trinseo completed its renaming process in 1Q 2015. Trinseo had approximately USD3.8 billion in net sales in 2019, with 17 manufacturing sites around the world, and approximately 2,700 employees.
MRC

Lake Charles producers remain offline following hurricane

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hurricane Laura left most of the US Gulf Coast unscathed, but Lake Charles, Louisiana, was hit hard, and petrochemical production units in the area could be offline for weeks, reported Chemweek.

Producers with assets there include Sasol, Westlake Chemical, Lotte Chemical, and LyondellBasell. Products affected include polyolefins, ethylene glycol, vinyls, and chlor-alkali.

"The Lake Charles area will be dealing with the impacts of the storm for weeks, if not the entire month of September," says a bulletin issued by IHS Markit on 31 August.

The Lake Charles area is home to 9% of US linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) capacity (by way of Sasol and Westlake Chemical), 10% of US low-density polyethylene (LDPE) capacity (Westlake), and 8% of US polypropylene (PP) capacity (LyondellBasell). All of this capacity is believed to be offline. On 31 August, Sasol declared force majeure on LLDPE and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) produced at its joint-venture site with Ineos in La Porte, Texas. Ineos also has force majeures in place for polyethylene, and Ineos, Formosa Plastics, and LyondellBasell have force majeures for PP.

Sasol says that manufacturing at its Lake Charles Chemicals Complex (LCCC) remains shut down. "The storm resulted in widespread electrical blackouts and other damage, preventing Sasol from operating most utility systems," says a statement from the company. "High voltage transmission line corridors into the Lake Charles area are damaged, and the full assessment is still in progress by a local power company." The company says cooling towers at the facility suffered wind damage, but process equipment at the facility does not appear to have been affected, nor has flooding been an issue.

Sasol has two steam crackers totaling 2 million metric tons/year of ethylene capacity at the LCCC. Downstream derivatives produced at the facility include ethylene glycol (EG; 300,000 metric tons/year of capacity), LLDPE (470,000 metric tons/year), alpha-olefins (110,000 metric tons/year), Ziegler alcohols (300,000 metric tons/year), and ethoxylates (110,000 metric tons/year). A 420,000 metric tons/year LDPE unit is slated for start-up by year-end.

"Start-up of the plants will depend on the availability of electricity, industrial gases, other feedstocks, and the restoration process," Sasol says. "We are engaging with our customers and suppliers regularly regarding the impacts on production." The statement notes that the hurricane is not expected to have "an adverse impact on any potential divestment transaction related to Sasol's base chemical portfolio in the United States."

Westlake Chemical on 27 August said that an initial assessment found "limited physical damage" at its Lake Charles facility. Like Sasol, the company said restart would depend on the availability of electricity and feedstocks. Products of the facility include ethylene dichloride (EDC; 1.8 million metric tons/year of capacity), vinyl chloride monomer (VCM; 990,000 metric tons/year), LLDPE (150,000 metric tons/year), LDPE (136,000 metric tons/year), and chlor-alkali, according to data from IHS Markit.

As of the morning of 31 August, operations at the facility had not resumed.

Westlake's Lake Charles complex accounts for 9% of US chlorine capacity, 10% of VCM capacity, and 14% of EDC direct chlorination capacity. While there is no polyvinyl chloride (PVC) capacity at Lake Charles, the complex supplies feedstock to PVC production facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi.

"The PVC market was already in a tight situation before the hurricane, and this setback in vinyls operations will definitely put more stress on the PVC market," says IHS Markit. "Chlorinated intermediates and the merchant chlorine markets are likely to see tightening supply, as a result, until operations are able to resume."

Lotte's 720,000 metric tons/year EG plant at Lake Charles is the largest in the world. That unit and Sasol's together account for 25% of North American EG capacity, and it will likely be several weeks before they return to normal operations, says IHS Markit. "Downstream derivatives and exports will be negatively impacted, as the EG market in the US has been very tight amid planned and unplanned EG outages earlier this year." Additional turnarounds have been planned for September and beyond, but they may be postponed, depending on how the supply situation plays out.

As MRC informed earlier, the US Energy Department announced the shutting of two of four sites of the national emergency oil reserve temporarily to remove workers ahead of Hurricane Laura, but that the remaining sites could deliver oil if the facility gets any requests for deliveries.

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