Toyo and Velocys partner to produce renewable fuels

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Velocys plc (VLS.L), the sustainable fuels technology company, has announce the signing of a collaboration agreement with Toyo Engineering Corporation (Toyo) to start the development of their commercial projects to produce Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and other renewable fuels in Japan, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The agreement follows on from the successful work already conducted in 2020 between Velocys and Toyo at the biomass-to-jet-fuel demonstration facility in Japan. This included the provision of technical engineering and operational services, as well as the completed construction and delivery of Velocys’ Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology.

As part of this new collaboration the parties have engaged in the preliminary engineering evaluation of the FT island in a joint effort to deliver a commercial scale biomass-to-jet fuel project in Japan.

As previously announced, Velocys will grant an exclusive right for Toyo to secure and use the licence and technical services of the Velocys FT Technology for the commercial plant in Japan. An advance deposit of USD4 million was received in 2019 of which USD3.5 million remains in escrow, which will be offset against future revenues.

In addition, the collaboration will extend to include the supply of the Velocys FT technology in other SAF, e-Fuels and biomass-to-liquids projects in the Japanese market. This will be led by Toyo, including other partners introduced by Toyo. Subsequent project execution for SAF, e-Fuels and other renewable fuel projects will be delivered by Toyo and their partners, potentially in Japan and other regions, with Velocys providing technical engineering and operational services around the FT technology.

Henrik Wareborn, CEO of Velocys, said: “Velocys has a long-standing relationship with Toyo Engineering and today’s collaboration agreement further supports this commitment. It indicates that Velocys is now firmly in the phase of delivering our commercial scale technology to our clients’ commercial projects. Making our first steps into commercial delivery in the Japanese market strengthens our position in an additional geography to North America and Europe.

“Our clients recognise the importance of our here-and-now technology solution for commercial scale projects, not only greatly reducing Scope 3 life-cycle carbon emissions but also resulting in synthetic fuels with air quality advantages over conventional fuels. We look forward to working with Toyo and their partners to enable the supply of modern low greenhouse-gas synthetic fuels to the Japanese market.

“Whilst there is no immediate material impact on revenue, we are delighted that the collaboration provides a pathway to commercialisation in Japan.”

Haruo Nagamatsu, CEO of Toyo, said: “After the successful collaboration with the demonstration plant in Japan, we are pleased to be moving onto the next stage of the plan. The commercial deployment of the integrated technology that has been demonstrated during 2020, including the Velocys FT Technology, is now underway with the first stages of the engineering designs. We are pleased to be working with Velocys and their technical team and look forward to continuing our relationship.”

As MRC informed before, in late 2020, Agilyx Corp., Tigard, Oregon, and Toyo Styrene Co. Ltd., a Toyko-based affiliate of Denka Co. Ltd., announced they were 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. According to a news release from Agilyx, the facility will focus on recycling postuse polystyrene (PS) plastic back to a styrene monomer. In April, 2020, Agilyx had announced the licensing of its technology to Toyo Styrene.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics totalled 520,630 tonnes in 2020, which corresponded to the same figure a year earlier. December estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics grew by 5% year on year to 47,490 tonnes.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lonza says it has reached an agreement with a consortium of private equity firms Bain Capital and Cinven for the previously announced sale of the Lonza Specialty Ingredients (LSI) business and operations, for an enterprise value of 4.2 billion Swiss francs (USD4.7 billion), said Chemweek.

The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2021, subject to customary closing conditions, Lonza says.
Lonza's plans to carve out LSI were first announced in June 2019. The company started to look for potential buyers in July last year and since October 2020 reports emerged of a potential sale of LSI to Bain and Cinven, or other financial and industry firms.

Bain and Cinven say they intend to collaborate closely with Lonza going forward, as well as with employee representative bodies in Switzerland and across the group. “Bain Capital and Cinven have shown they understand the value of the experience and expertise of our specialty ingredients employees. They presented the most compelling industrial strategy and vision for the business, they are also keen to prioritize R&D and innovation, as well as to invest in existing facilities to unlock the potential of the business," says Albert Baehny, chairman of Lonza.

LSI is one of two segments within Lonza. The other is pharma, biotech, and nutrition. The LSI business is a provider of microbial control solutions for professional hygiene and personal care products that operates across 17 manufacturing sites worldwide and has approximately 2,800 permanent employees. LSI was reported as discontinued operations in Lonza’s 2020 results. The segment’s sales declined 2.1% to SFr1.68 billion in 2020.

Baehny says that selling the LSI business “will allow Lonza to focus on its position as a leading partner to the healthcare industry, and the free cash flows resulting from the sale will allow us to accelerate our strategic priorities."

According to David Danon, managing director at Bain, “LSI has multiple attractive growth opportunities as the leading global player in the growing market for microbial control. Our strategy is to reinforce the company’s market position, to accelerate growth through further investment in R&D and innovation, and to use LSI as a platform for further industry consolidation, in line with Bain Capital’s and Cinven’s strategies in other sectors."

Bain owns chemical companies Diversey (Fort Mill, South Carolina) and Italmatch (Genoa, Italy), and in the past it owned Brenntag and Trinseo. Cinven has a majority stake in chemical distributor Barentz International (Hoofddorp, Netherlands), owns the construction chemicals firm Chryso (Daventry, UK), and in the past bought and sold the advanced ceramic business CeramTec (Plochingen, Germany) and the plastic packaging manufacturer Kloeckner Pentaplast (Luxembourg).

Bain says that advisors to the consortium include Kirkland & Ellis, Freshfields, Lenz & Staehelin, Ernst & Young, Boston Consulting Group, Alvarez & Marsal, ERM, Nexant, The Valence Group, Opus Corporate Finance, and Trumont International (London, UK).

As per MRC, Lonza said 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.

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 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) -- Howard Energy Partners (HEP) announced that it has executed an agreement with a subsidiary of MPLX LP to purchase the Javelina Facility (Javelina) located in Corpus Christi, Texas, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Javelina is a treating and fractionation plant that extracts olefins, hydrogen, and natural gas liquids (NGLs) from the gas streams produced by local refineries, creating purity products that are then sold to local markets on behalf of its refiner-customers.

"The Javelina facility is a multi-generational asset linked to stable, demand-driven refinery activity, further supporting our long-term growth strategy and diversification into new services and markets,” said HEP Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Howard. "We are very excited to broaden our existing footprint in the Corpus Christi market, and look forward to welcoming Javelina’s great team of employees that has been safely and efficiently running the facility for several years. We will continue to provide world class service to Javelina’s long-term customers."

The Javelina facility has a long history of reliably producing a wide range of product streams including hydrogen, ethylene, ethane, propylene, propane, mixed butane and other pentanes+ for use in the energy and petrochemical markets. Javelina is connected by pipeline to all of the major refineries in the Corpus Christi area and provides a critical service to help ensure the refineries’ productive capabilities. Additionally, excess capacity at the facility provides the opportunity for growth in the future. HEP expects to close the acquisition in early 2021.

As per MRC, Port of Corpus Christi announced the approval of a long-term lease agreement with Maverick Terminals Corpus LLC, a subsidiary of Howard Energy Partners.

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) -- Kemira (Helsinki, Finland) has announced price increases in the Americas for its entire range of polymer products for the water treatment and oil and gas industries, effective immediately or as contract terms allow, reported Chemweek.

Product prices will rise by between 3-18%.

“Recent economic rebound and positive developments in many downstream markets have led to unforeseen cost increases for key raw materials and energy,” it says.

Kemira also announced a separate price increase in the Americas for most process and functional chemicals for pulp and paper applications late last week. The 5-15% rise in prices is effective on shipments made on or after 1 March 2021 or as contracts otherwise allow. “Rapidly escalating costs for raw materials, energy, packaging, and transportation make this price adjustment necessary,” it says.

The company raised its polymer prices in the EAME region in January.

As MRC informed earlier, in September 2020, Kemira signed a multi year extension of its polymer supply agreement with Ithaca Energy. Kemira said it had signed a multiyear extension to its polymer supply agreement with Ithaca Energy (Aberdeen, UK). The agreement extends the contract between the two companies, signed in 2018, covering the supply of polymers to enhance oil extraction performance at one of the assets operated by Ithaca Energy in the UK North Sea.

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) -- Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. announced that its subsidiary Tecnimont SpA, through its Indian entity Tecnimont Private Limited, has been awarded an EPCC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning) contract by Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), for the implementation of new Acrylic Acid and Butyl Acrylate Units, for the production of relevant high added value products for the chemical market, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The units will be located in Dumad, near Vadodara, in the Gujarat state, in India. The overall value of the contract is about USD255 million. The project scope entails Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning activities up to the Performance Guarantees Test Run. Once completed, the new Acrylic Acid Unit will have a capacity of 90,000 tons per year, while the new Butyl Acrylate Unit will have a capacity of 150,000 tons per year. The time schedule is 26 months for Mechanical Completion.

"After the recent announcement of the MoU with IOCL to support the industrialization of green chemistry and circular economy in India, we consolidate a strategic relationship with such a prominent client also in the petrochemical business. Our technology-driven strategy enabled us once again to seize opportunities in a market with a very promising downstream investment cycle, thanks to the growing demand for petrochemical products. Finally, in sync with the strategic vision of the Government of India aimed at maximizing the “In Country Value”, our Indian entity will execute the job as a single point of responsibility, confirming its strong capabilities in managing big complex projects," Pierroberto Folgiero, Maire Tecnimont Group Chief Executive Officer said.

As per MRC, Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. announced that its subsidiaries Tecnimont S.p.A. and KT - Kinetics Technology S.p.A. have signed with SOCAR’s subsidiary Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery two Engineering, Procurement and Construction contracts, as part of the Modernization and Reconstruction of Heydar Aliyev Oil Refinery in Baku, Azerbaijan. SOCAR is the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic. The overall contracts’ value equals to approximately USD 160 million.

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