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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Solvay says it has
agreed to buy renewable gas to power the production of cyclopentanone at its
plant in Melle, France, as part of a wider decarbonization drive, reporte Chemweek.
The company has committed to
use biomethane gas to power the cyclopentanone unit at Melle for the next 15
years from an 18-gigawatt hours/year waste biomass facility built by an
agricultural cooperative.
“Since cyclopentanone is used as a building
block for so many fragrance applications, such as jasmine, we are committed to
producing it in the most sustainable way,” says Guillaume Meunier, global market
director/flavor and fragrance at Solvay's aroma performance business. The
commitment to power the plant with renewable gas is part of the company’s
initiative to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% by 2030, he
says.
Solvay commercializes two grades of cyclopentanone, one for the
fragrance market and another ultra-high-purity version for the electronics
market. Both are manufactured at the Melle facility.
As MRC reported earlier,
in August, 2020, through the acquisition of the Solvay polyamide (PA) business,
BASF enhanced its R&D capabilities in Asia Pacific with new
technologies, technical expertise, and upgraded material and part testing
services. BASF is planning to integrate the R&D centers from Solvay into its
R&D existing facilities in Shanghai, China, and Seoul, Korea. The enhanced
capabilities will boost BASF’s position as a solution provider to develop
advanced material solutions for key industries.
We remind that BASF-YPC,
a 50-50 joint venture of BASF and Sinopec, undertook a planned shutdown at its
naphtha cracker on 30 April 2020. The company initially planned to start
turnaround at the cracker on April 5, 2020. The plant remained under maintenance
unitl 18 June, 2020. Located in Jiangsu, China, the cracker has an ethylene
capacity of 750,000 mt/year and propylene capacity of 400,000
mt/year.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene
(PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report,
PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and
reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the
greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia
increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months
of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase
in imports. |
