Mitsubishi Heavy Industries invests in clean hydrogen maker Monolith Materials

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI; Tokyo) has completed a capital investment in Monolith Materials, which is building a worldscale emissions-free hydrogen plant in Hallam, Nebraska. Terms were not disclosed, said Chemweek.

Monolith’s technology is based on methane pyrolysis, which generates 3 metric tons of carbon black for every ton of hydrogen produced. The “turquoise” hydrogen at the Hallam plant will be combined with nitrogen using the Haber-Bosch process to make ammonia.

MHI, an industrial conglomerate with operations that include power, defense, and transport systems and machinery, said the investment will give it a position in the clean hydrogen value chain. "While we're evaluating a number of clean-energy development options, Monolith offers great promise," said Yoshihiro Shiraiwa, president and CEO of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America. "We're excited to be the first in a new wave of strategic investors supporting the development of their technology."

Monolith started its Olive Creek 1 (OC1) reactor at Hallam, which can produce approximately 14,000 metric tons/year of carbon black, in late September. Its recently announced investment, OC2, will add 12 additional reactors. Monolith expects construction on the new units to begin in 2021, with startup planned for 2024. The facility will produce 180,000 metric tons/year of carbon black.

"Successfully scaling Monolith's technology to serve a global marketplace will benefit from the kind of investment that we have from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries," said Rob Hanson, co-founder and CEO of Monolith Materials. "This relationship will be a model for evaluating future investment opportunities to make emissions-free hydrogen the standard around the world."

Monolith is backed by Azimuth Capital Management, Cornell Capital LLC, and Warburg Pincus. The company has raised USD275 million since its founding in 2014, excluding the latest MHI Investment.

As MRC informed earlier, Mitsubishi Chemical, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation, plans to resume production of methyl methacrylate (MMA) in Otake, Japan, in early December after scheduled repairs. The company closed this plant with a capacity of 110,000 tonnes/year of MMA for scheduled repairs in early September this year.

The main application, consuming approximately 75% MMA, is in the production of polymethyl methacrylate acrylic plastics (PMMA). Methyl methacrylate is also used to produce methyl methacrylate-butadiene-styrene copolymer (MBS), used as a modifier for polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, October total production of unmixed PVC grew to 86,600 tonnes from 86,000 tonnes a month earlier, SayanskKhimPlast and Bashkir Soda Company increased their capacity utilisation. Overall output of polymer was 805,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2020, which virtually corresponds to the last year"s figure. Two producers increased their production, whereas two other manufacturers reduced their output.

Mitsubishi Chemical, a Japanese integrated chemical company, was established on October 1, 1990 through the merger of Mitsubishi Kasei and Mitsubishi Petrochemical Co. Due to its wide range of activities, it is one of the ten leading chemical companies in the world.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lonza says it is making a “significant” investment to expand particle-engineering and drug-product capabilities at its Bend, Oregon, site with a total of 11 new suites, to meet increased market demand, reported Chemweek.

The first suite will be online this month, expanding early-phase spray-drying, tableting, and encapsulation capability, the company says. Suites for the development and clinical manufacture of drug-product intermediates and drug products utilizing spray-drying, hot-melt extrusion, and melt-spray-congeal processing will be completed by May 2022, it says. Further details have not been disclosed.

New current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) suites will be added to support early-phase cGMP manufacture incorporating additional storage, gowning, and a customer in-plant viewing corridor, as part of the investment, Lonza says. Non-cGMP capability for formulation and process development will also be expanded with one new suite, the company says.

The investment increases capacity and flexibility across particle engineering and oral-drug products, including immediate-release tablets, multi-particulates, and dry powder encapsulation for oral solid and inhaled applications, the company says.

“We continue to see increased demand for development, and clinical and commercial manufacture of particle-engineered intermediates and finished drug products. Dedicated fit-for-purpose suites, infrastructure, and systems are critical for supporting the needs of our customers’ early-phase programs,” says Paul Granberry, managing director at Lonza's Bend site.

As MRC informed earlier, Lonza (Basel, Switzerland) says it has developed a new structure for its pharma, biotech, and nutrition (LBPN) segment to increase “divisional end-to-end performance accountability” and to strengthen governance and process excellence from global functions, as the company proceeds with the previously announced divestment of its specialty ingredients (LSI) segment.

We remind that in 2012, Lonza set up a task force to look at new supply routes and vendors to feed its cracker in Visp, Switzerland, following the shutdown of Petroplus’ refinery at Cressier in January, 2012. Lonza’s cracker has an ethylene capacity of 25,000 tonnes/year.

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

According to MRC"s ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,594,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, up by 1% year on year. Only high denstiy polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 880,130 tonnes in the nine months of 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports plus imports, exluding producers" inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sibur, Russia’s top petrochemicals company, has ramped up its ZapSibNefteKhim plant in western Siberia to full capacity, signaling a shift in supplies of LPG away from Europe as more products are sold to Asia, said the company.

Sibur signed a deal in June to sell up to 1 million tons of polyethylene a year to China’s Sinopec from ZapSibNefteKhim, which uses LPG as a feedstock. The Russian company, one of the biggest petrochemical companies in the world, has been gradually cutting LPG exports to Europe as it boosts ZapSibNefteKhim’s capacity.

In addition to oil, natural and super-cooled gas, Russia is increasing petrochemicals sales to China as it pivots away from Western markets amid growing tensions. Privately-owned Sibur said ZapSibNefteKhim was now capable of delivering over 2.2 million tons of petrochemicals a year, mostly polyethylene and polypropylene.

At a televised meeting at the plant in Tobolsk, Russian president Vladimir Putin said global demand for the petrochemicals would grow by almost 4% a year, compared with just 1% for oil over the next five years. He pledged state help for the industry.

Sergey Komyshan, Sibur’s executive director for marketing and sales, told reporters that ZapSibNefteKhim was exporting around 75% of its total petrochemicals output to China and Europe, leaving the remaining 25% for its home market.

In total, Sibur plans to export as much as 1.5 million tons of petrochemicals from the plant per year by 2025, worth up to 100 billion roubles (USD1.3 billion), the company said. Over time, Sibur also plans to increase supplies of polyethylene and polypropylene to the Russian market, Komyshan said.

As MRC informed earlier, Sibur (Moscow, Russia) has awarded Univation Technologies a contract to supply its Unipol polyethylene (PE) process technology for Sibur’s USD10-billion Amur gas-chemicals complex (AGCC) being built in Russia’s Far East. Sibur, Russia’s largest integrated petrochemical company, says it has selected Univation’s licensed process for three 600,000-metric tons/year PE lines at Amur. The lines will be part of the integrated project, located near Svobodny in the Amur region close to Russia’s border with China, which will have a total polyolefin design capacity of 2.7 million metric tons/year.

As per MRC's ScanPlast, September PE production in Russia was 233,200 tonnes, whereas this figure was 258,700 tonnes a month earlier, in the first month of autumn several producers stopped their capacities for repairs at once. Thus, overall PE output reached 2,204,200 tonnes in January-September 2020, compared to 1,349,000 tonnes a year earlier. Production of all PE grades rose, but LLDPE accounted for the greatest increase, which was provided by ZapSibNeftekhim.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Agilyx Corp., Tigard, Oregon, and Toyo Styrene Co. Ltd., a Toyko-based affiliate of Denka Co. Ltd., have announced they are 30% complete with the final phase of developing the front-end loading design to deploy Agilyx's technology near Toyo Styrene’s facility in the Chiba prefecture of Japan, reported RecyclingToday.

According to a news release from Agilyx, the facility will focus on recycling postuse polystyrene (PS) plastic back to a styrene monomer. In April, Agilyx had announced the licensing of its technology to Toyo Styrene.

“We are extremely proud of the work that members of Agilyx and Toyo have accomplished to get the project to this point,” says Tim Stedman, CEO of Agilyx. “This further solidifies the efforts going on at Agilyx to increase global plastic recycling through circular pathways. We are excited to provide our proven solution into the Asian markets that will greatly improve recycled plastic content availability.”

Sanshiro Matsushita, president of Toyo Styrene, says Japan has “a real need” to chemically recycle PS. He adds that he is satisfied with the progress of the design development of this project. “Despite the tough situation brought on by COVID-19 at the beginning of the year, the teams at both companies have been working hard, making the best of long-distance collaboration,” Matsushita says.

Agilyx reports that the advanced recycling facility is designed to convert up to 10 tons per day of postindustrial and postconsumer PS into a styrene monomer that will be purified using Toyo Styrene’s proprietary purification process. The facility is on target to meet its goal of commencing operations in early 2022.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics totalled 362,820 tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, down by 1% year on year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil plans to write down as much as USD20bn in assets and cut its 2021 capital expenditures (capex) to USD16bn-19bn as it prioritizes investments in chemical performance products in the near term, said Chemweek.

Annual capex thereafter until 2025 will be USD20bn-25bn, down from the company’s original budget of USD30bn-35bn. ExxonMobil is also eyeing a 15% cut in its global workforce by the end of next year to cut expenses amid the demand slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a low-oil price environment. The asset write-off would include certain dry gas resources in the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas in the US, and in western Canada and Argentina.

"Continued emphasis on high-grading the asset base - through exploration, divestment and prioritization of advantaged development opportunities - will improve earnings power and cash generation, and rebuild balance sheet capacity to manage future commodity price cycles while working to maintain a reliable dividend," ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Darren Woods said. ExxonMobil's spending will now focus on "developments in Guyana and the US Permian Basin, targeted exploration in Brazil and Chemicals projects to grow high-value performance products", the company said.

Woods said the business environment in the fourth quarter is showing signs of improvement despite the resurgence in coronavirus cases and accompanying economic restrictions. “Prices and margins for many of our businesses have improved from the third quarter and when coupled with continuing efforts to reduce spending and capture additional efficiencies, quarter-to-date cash flow has improved versus our plan assumptions,” he said.

As MRC informed earlier, ExxonMobil-operated, 110,000-metric tons/year butyl rubber plant at Fawley in the south of the UK is set for a full-scale turnaround in 2022, according to sources with links to the plant. The unit is one of the largest producers in the world of halobutyl rubber, supplying one third of all ExxonMobil's global output.

We remind that ExxonMobil has undertaken a planned shutdown at its cracker in Singapore. The company halted operations at the cracker for maintenance on September 14, 2020. The cracker is expected to remain off-line till end-October, 2020. Located at Jurong Island, Singapore, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 1 million mt/year and a propylene production capacity of 450,000 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 1,496,500 tonnes in the first eight months of 2020, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of all ethylene polymers increased, except for linear low desnity polyethylene (LLDPE). At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 767,2900 tonnes in the eight months of 2020 (calculated using the formula - production minus exports plus imports - and not counting producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.

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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