Versalis and AGR to develop new products from end-of-life tyres

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Versalis, Eni's chemical company and a leader in the production and marketing of elastomers, and AGR, company that owns technology for the devulcanization of post-consumer elastomers, have signed an agreement to develop technological innovations and new products and applications with recycled rubber, reported GV.

The aim of the agreement is to pool their respective expertise to develop and market a new range of elastomer-based products made from granulated rubber from post-consumer products, thus meeting the growing circular economy needs of manufacturers of tyres and other rubber products.

Versalis will make available the laboratories of its research centres in Ravenna and Ferrara (both Italy), as well as the necessary equipment for development, both in terms of formulation and technology. AGR will make its technological platform available at its plant in Cumiana (Turin, Italy). The initiative will be developed in collaboration with the EcoTyre Consortium, which manages a national network for the collection and processing of ELTs (End-of-Life Tyres) from which granulated rubber will be obtained.

With this new circular economy initiative, Versalis aims to expand the range of Versalis Revive products, made of recycled materials. This will include the elastomeric materials segment, in which it is leader in terms of technological and application expertise.

As MRC informed before, Versalis, the chemicals subsidiary of Eni (Rome, Italy), has reduced production at its 65,000-metric tons/year acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plant at Mantova, Italy, to 50% until at least February 2021 due to one of its suppliers declaring force majeure.

We remind that in 2019, Versalis unveiled plans to increase production capacity for ABS at its Mantua, Italy, facility. The project will boost ABS capacity at its existing unit by 30,000 t/y. The engineering phase ha already begun, and production was scheduled to start in 2020.

According to ICIS-MRC Price report, ABS imports into Russia rose in the first eleven months of 2020 by 2% year on year to 32,000 tonnes from 31,300 tonnes a year earlier. South Korean shipments accounted for 62% (19,900 tonnes) in January-November 2020 versus the share of 58% (18,200 tonnes) a year earlier. .

Eni is an Italian multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Rome. It has operations in in 79 countries, and is currently Italy's largest industrial company. The Italian government owns a 30.3% golden share in the company, 3.93% held through the state Treasury and 26.37% held through the Cassa depositi e prestiti. Another 39.40% of the shares are held by BNP Paribas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF has announced that the implementation of the methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) capacity increase programme for production facilities at its Verbund site in Geismar, LA, USA, is progressing on schedule, according to GV.

Over time, the company targets to double the capacity from 300,000 t/y to approximately 600,000 t/y. BASF said with this stepwise capacity addition, it will support the ongoing growth of its North American MDI customers.

The first phase, which is the construction of a new MDI synthesis unit, is complete and in operation. At the same time, an older MDI synthesis unit is no longer in service. Although the instant capacity addition is limited, the new MDI production unit sets the foundation for future growth through capacity increases of upstream units.

In the second phase, for which construction is currently ongoing, BASF will be expanding several upstream units and by doing so, increase MDI overall output of the Geismar complex by approximately one third. Startup of this second phase is expected in the second half of 2021. The potential final phase is targeted to be completed by mid of the decade. It is expected to bring the MDI capacity to approximately 600,000 t/y.

“The North American MDI market and our customers remain a key focus and we are pursuing this investment to support their growth,” said Ramkumar Dhruva, President of BASF’s Monomers division. “BASF supports customer growth by providing innovative polyurethane solutions that reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Some examples include improved insulation for buildings and lightweight materials for the automotive industry,” Dhruva said.

Stefan Doerr, Head of BASF’s Monomers business in North America, added: “The Geismar site is ideally suited for this investment thanks to its existing infrastructure, competitive raw materials and ongoing strong business support from state and local government. With this integrated facility, BASF will continue to be a leading MDI supplier in North America as well as globally.”

As MRC reported earlier, nn 17 December, 2020, BASF opened its ASEAN Technical Development Center adjacent to its existing polyurethane (PU) System House at Bangpoo site in Thailand. The new facility houses a state-of-the-art pre-polymer reactor technology to produce a hardener (component B) - a key component to boost product development efficiency, thereby enabling faster time-to-market of PU materials and solutions.

We remind that German chemicals maker BASF said in early November it had put a project to build a petrochemicals complex in India worth up to USD4 billion on hold due to the economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. BASF signed a memorandum of understanding with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Adani Group and Borealis AG in October 2019 to evaluate a collaboration to build the chemical site in Mundra, in India’s Gujarat state.

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.

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.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A consortium including Hyundai Engineering Co Ltd and KBR Inc has expressed interest in a contract to renovate Ecuador’s 110,000-barrel per day (bpd) Esmeraldas refinery, Energy Minister Rene Ortiz and the companies said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Last year, Ortiz announced the search for a private company to invest around USD2.4 billion in the refinery, owned by state oil company Petroecuador, to boost fuel output at the plant and help the cash-strapped South American country reduce imports of refined products.

The consortium plans to receive financing from Morgan Stanley. It has until February to present a final bid for the project, according to a timeline presented by the energy ministry. The government will make a final decision on awarding the contract in March.

The contract will then be signed in April. The deal is part of President Lenin Moreno’s efforts to boost private investment in Ecuador’s struggling economy. He is set to leave office in May after presidential elections next month.

The consortium also includes Texas-based companies RGFx Initiatives and Energlobal Investment Group. Neither authorities nor representatives of the four companies who attended a press conference clarified how much the consortium was expected to invest, or the fees the consortium would receive for eventually delivering refined products to the state for domestic sale.

As per MRC, KBR announced that Sinochem Quanzhou Petrochemical Co. has successfully commissioned a new ethylene facility in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China, utilizing KBR's SCORE (Selective Cracking Optimum Recovery) technology. The 1-million-t/y ethylene plant is part of Sinochem's grassroots integrated refining and petrochemical complex, which also includes a 400,000-t/y high-density polyethylene (HDPE) facility, which recently achieved on-spec production, as well as an 800,000-t/y paraxylene (PX) plant, a 350,000-t/y polypropylene (PP) unit and an aromatics extraction unit with 300,000 t/y of capacity.

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.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Ascend Performance Materials (Houston, Texas) has acquired Eurostar Engineering Plastics (Fosse, France), a compounder with a broad portfolio of flame-retardant (FR) engineered plastics and expertise in halogen-free formulations, said Chemweek.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company also says it is very close to obtaining FDA and EPA approval to make COVID-19-related claims for its Acteev Protect antimicrobial fabric technology. "We are following through on our strategy of becoming a more global, diversified and reliable supplier to our customers,” says Phil McDivitt, Ascend’s president and CEO. "For us this is a play into a broader, more specified business. Eurostar is very strong technically." He notes that Eurostar has yellow-card certification from Underwriters Laboratories for over 100 flame-retardant polyamide products.

"Our purchase of Eurostar is a real accelerator," says McDivitt. "It greatly expands our FR portfolio--we believe it will give us the fullest FR line in the engineering plastics business. The challenge for Eurostar [has been that] it's a Europe-only company with one site. We're able to fully leverage our global footprint and take these products into the US and Asia."

Ascend, a fully integrated producer of nylon 6,6, acquired two other European businesses, Poliblend and Esseti Plast GD, from D’Ottavio Group in February 2020. That deal brought a manufacturing facility in Mozzate, Italy, Esseti Plast's masterbatch portfolio, and Poliblend's portfolio of engineering plastics, which included virgin and recycled grades of nylons 6 and 6,6, polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), and and polyoxymethylene (POM or polyacetal).

In June 2020, Ascend acquired the assets of NCM (Changshu) Co. and Tehe Engineering Plastic (Suzhou) Co. located in Changshu Yushan High-tech Industrial Park near Shanghai. Ascend intends to expand the compounding assets at the site and to establish a global research and development center.

"Between these acquisitions and the launch of our Acteev Protect line, it's been a very transformational year for Ascend," says McDivitt. Ascend launched the Acteev Protect antimicrobial technology, which embeds zinc oxide within the polymer lattice of nylon 6,6, in June. Ascend originally developed Acteev to control odor in fabrics by inhibiting bacterial growth, but over 350 third-party studies have shown it is also highly effective against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The company has been working with FDA and EPA since the second quarter of 2020, and it expects the agencies to approve the use of Acteev in masks and other applications to protect against SARS-CoV-2 during the first quarter of 2021.

Ascend has already produced millions of pounds of Acteev nylon 6,6, a portion of which the company used to make over 600,000 masks. "We see Acteev being a whole new part of Ascend," says McDivitt. "We'll have a medical side of the business and a non-medical side."

As per MRC, Ascend Performance Materials (Houston) has increased its prices, effective immediately, for adiponitrile (ADN), acrylonitrile, adipic acid, and hexamethylenediamine (HMDA). The prices of HMDA and ADN have each been hiked by USD350/metric ton, while acrylonitrile has been raised by USD200/metric ton. The price of adipic acid has been increased by USD100/metric ton. All the price rises are as contracts allow, with non-contract business prices determined on an order-by-order basis, it says.

We remind that Russia's output of chemical products rose in November 2020 by 9.5% year on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased in the first eleven months of 2020 by 6.6% year on year, according to Rosstat's data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-November 2020 output. November production of polymers in primary form rose to 896,000 tonnes from 852,000 tonnes in October. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 9,240,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 17.1% year on year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Data collected and tabulated by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) show that global chemicals production rose 1.9% in November, up from 1.7% in October and extending the recovery that began in June. During November, chemical production grew in all regions except the Former Soviet Union (FSU), said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Headline global production was up 3.7% year-over-year (Y/Y) on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis and is now 2.9% above the pre-COVID peak last December. Global output stood at 122.0 percent of its average 2012 levels.

During November, global capacity rose 0.1% and was up 2.2% Y/Y. With improving production, capacity utilization in the global chemical industry rose 1.5 points to 82.9%. This is up from 81.7% in October and the pre-COVID peak in December 2019, but below the long-term (1987-2017) average of 86.5%.

Among chemical industry segments, November results were positive, with gains across all segments. Considering year-earlier comparisons, growth was mixed, with gains in plastic resins, synthetic rubber, manufactured fibers, bulk petrochemicals and organics, inorganic chemicals, other specialties, agricultural chemicals, and consumer products, but contraction in coatings.

ACC’s Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) measures the production volume of the chemical industry for 33 key nations, sub-regions, and regions, all aggregated to the world total. The index is comparable to the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) production indices and features a similar base year where 2012=100. This index is developed from government industrial production indices for chemicals from more than 65 nations accounting for about 98% of the total global chemical industry. This data set is the only timely source of market trends for the global chemical industry and is comparable to the U.S. CPRI data, a timely source of U.S. regional chemical production.

We remind that Russia's output of chemical products rose in November 2020 by 9.5% year on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased in the first eleven months of 2020 by 6.6% year on year, according to Rosstat's data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-November 2020 output. November production of polymers in primary form rose to 896,000 tonnes from 852,000 tonnes in October. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 9,240,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 17.1% year on year.
MRC