Cornerstone declares force majeure at its ACN plant in US

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Cornerstone, a key producer of acrylonitrile (ACN) in the US, declared force majeure (FM) in the week ended Feb. 6, reported S&P Global.

Thus, the FM was declared at its facility in Waggaman (Waggaman, Louisiana, USA) with a capacity of 240,000 mt/year of ACN.

The force majeure was declared due to mechanical issues and a shortage of feedstock. FM is currently expected to stay in force until April after a 15-day scheduled overhaul at the plant from mid to late March.

The company sells 6,000-7,000 mt of ACN to India each month.

Acrylonitrile is one of the main feedstock for the production of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS).

According to ICIS-MRC Price report, last year's ABS imports to Russia grew by 4% year on year to 35,000 tonnes from 33,700 tonnes. The share of South Korean supplies amounted to 62% (21,600 tonnes) versus 58% (19,700 tonnes) in January-December 2019.

Cornerstone Chemical Company manufactures a variety of petrochemical products. Thus, the company produces acrylonitrile (ACN), which is used in the production of acrylamide, acrylic fibers, nitrile rubber, elastomers, ABS plastics, surface coatings and other products; melamine and other petrochemical products. The company was founded in 1952 and is headquartered in Waggaman, Louisiana, USA.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Private equity company Carlyle Group will increase its stake in Varo Energy by buying out one of two other partners in the Swiss refining firm, the companies said, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Carlyle is part owner of Varo with Dutch investment firm Reggeborgh and energy trader Vitol. Varo said Carlyle would raise its share by acquiring Reggeborgh’s interest.

Varo owns Switzerland’s Cressier refinery and a majority share of the Bayernoil refinery in Germany. It also has marketing and storage businesses in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.

Marcel van Poecke, managing director and head of Carlyle International Energy Partners, said Varo was expected to expand “as it leverages its solid platform and further capitalizes on the opportunities presented by the shift towards low carbon."

Varo was valued at about 2 billion euros (USD2.4 billion) when it planned to list on the Amsterdam stock market in 2018. But the flotation was cancelled, with Varo citing market volatility due to tensions in relations between the United States and China at the time.

As per MRC, Dutch company Akzo Nobel NV has decided to sell its special purpose chemicals division to the American Carlyle Group and Singapore's GIC for EUR10.1 billion.

Besides, Varo Energy BV's owners, US private equity firm Carlyle Group and commodities trader Vitol, are looking at an initial public offering next year that could value the European oil refiner at about USD2 B.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,220,640 tonnes in 2020, up by 2% year on year. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, excluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Tennant Company announced it has completed the sale of its coatings business, Tennant Coatings, to The Sherwin-Williams Company, said Chemweek.

"The sale of Tennant’s coatings business is our latest move in the ongoing implementation of our enterprise strategy,” said Tennant CEO Chris Killingstad. “By divesting a business that is not central to our core strengths in industrial and commercial floor cleaning, we can redirect resources toward more strategic and profitable activities."

Tennant Coatings designs and manufactures indoor and outdoor coatings systems for a variety of applications and industries. For the trailing 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2020, the coatings business generated USD22.1 million in sales, or 2.2 percent of Tennant Company’s total sales. Following the sale, approximately 70 Tennant employees are expected to join The Sherwin-Williams Company.

As per MRC, Sherwin-Williams (SW) reported third-quarter net income up 22.4% year-on-year (YOY), to USD705.8 million, on net sales up 5.2%, to USD5.12 billion.Adjusted earnings totaled USD8.29/share, beating analysts’ consensus estimate of USD7.75/share, as reported by Refinitiv (New York, New York). Higher sales for architectural paint, especially residential repaint and do-it-yourself (DIY) paint, drove the increases.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,220,640 tonnes in 2020, up by 2% year on year. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, exluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lummus Technology announced an award for its Indmax Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) technology from Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. (NRL), a subsidiary of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL), according to Kemicalinfo.

The Indmax FCC unit is part of NRL’s refinery expansion project, which will increase crude processing capacity from the current 3 MMTPA to 9 MMTPA at their facilities in Golaghat, Assam, India.

Lummus is the global licensor of Indmax FCC technology, which is developed in collaboration with Research & Development Centre of Indian Oil Company Limited (IOCL R&D).

“We are grateful that NRL selected Lummus and Chevron Lummus Global as the licensors for their refinery expansion, which is a testament to the superior performance of our technology and the tremendous relationship we have,” said Leon de Bruyn, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lummus Technology. “This award is also recognition of the industry’s confidence in our Indmax FCC technology as the world is shifting from fuels to petrochemicals, and it adds to our dominant market share in the high-propylene FCC arena both in India and worldwide.”

The scope for this project includes the technology license, basic engineering and related services. Once complete, the Indmax FCC unit will process 1.96 MMTPA of mixed hydrotreated VGO feed with flexibility to operate in gasoline mode as well as maximum propylene production mode.

Lummus’ award is in addition to the recently announced LC-FINING technology award by Chevron Lummus Global, a joint venture between Chevron and Lummus, for the same project.

In 2020, Indmax FCC won the 2020 award for Best Refining Technology by Hydrocarbon Processing, a leading media organization for the downstream industry.

Indmax FCC is a proven process to produce propylene, ethylene and butylenes in refineries directly from heavy residues. The Indmax FCC technology combines the proprietary and innovative Indmax catalyst and process concepts developed by the IOCL R&D, with state-of-the-art FCC technology and hardware design features of Lummus. The Indmax FCC technology is a unique solution for the vertical integration of refinery and petrochemical complexes in revamp or grassroots projects.

As MRC wrote previously, in July 2020, Haldia Petrochemicals (HPL), a flagship company of The Chatt­erjee Group (TCG), alo­ng with its international partner Rhone Capital acquired US-based Lummus Technology at an enterprise value (EV) of USD2.725 billion (around Rs 20,590 crore) from McDermott International. In the joint acquisition, HPL’s share is at 57 per cent, the balance would be held by Rhone Capital. Under the new dispensation, Lummus Technology wou­ld function as a ‘standalone’ autonomous entity.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,220,640 tonnes in 2020, up by 2% year on year. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, exluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020).

Lummus Technology is a master licensor of proprietary technologies in refining, petrochemicals, gas processing and coal gasification sectors, as well as a supplier of proprietary catalysts, equipment and related engineering services. It has about 130 licensed technologies and more than 3,400 patents and trademarks.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A U.S. subsidiary of state-owned Thai oil and gas company PTT PCL said that it was focused on finding a partner for its proposed petrochemical plant in Ohio that will turn ethane into plastics, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

“The focus of the project is finding a partner. There are very substantive conversations going on with a number of companies that the project team feels good about,” said Dan Williamson, a spokesman for the project. He said he could not share the names of those companies at this time.

Williamson also said the team was in the process of meeting with members of President Joe Biden’s administration to brief them on the benefits of the project, which will cost an estimated $10 billion to build and create hundreds of full-time jobs and thousands of construction jobs.

He also noted that renewables would be part of the project. Last summer, PTT’s PTT Global Chemical America (PTTGCA) subsidiary delayed making a final investment decision to build the ethane cracker from the first half of 2020 to the first half of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Williamson said the company still hopes to make a final investment decision during the first half of 2021 but noted that time frame is a “reasonable hope” and not a “set in stone” prediction. If it were not for the pandemic, the company has said the plant would likely already be under construction.

The ethane cracker is designed to produce about 1.5 million metric tons of ethylene per year and will take 4-6 years to build. In addition to PTTGCA’s project, Royal Dutch Shell PLC is building an ethane cracker nearby in western Pennsylvania that is expected to enter service in the early 2020s.

As per MRC, PTT Global Chemical has put plans for the construction of a massive petrochemical plant in eastern Ohio on hold while it conducts another feasibility study. The proposed project, which was announced in 2015, has faced a series of delays.

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.

PTT Global Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a year.
MRC