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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Encina Development
Group (Encina; The Woodlands, Texas) and Flint Hills Resources say they are
exploring a collaboration to produce renewable chemicals and fuels from plastic
waste, reported Chemweek.
The two
have signed a non-binding term sheet that proposes construction of a facility in
Corpus Christi, Texas. Flint Hills would market the aromatic products produced
at the Encina Corpus Christi facility and work with its affiliates to market
renewable aromatic products from other Encina plants in the US.
“Our work
with Encina is an exciting addition to our growing portfolio of renewable
product and technology investments,” says Francis Murphy, senior vice
president/chemicals at Flint Hills. “Renewable aromatics and bioplastics are
playing an increasingly import role in the product value chain and reducing
environmental impacts while still delivering on all the various products that
make modern life possible.”
“Flint Hills Resources is an excellent
partner for Encina,” says David Schwedel, executive director at Encina. “They
have deep domain industry expertise and an aligned focus on delivering
highly-valued and sustainable products to the marketplace.”
In December
2020, Encina and Braskem announced a collaboration for the production of
circular propylene from plastic waste.
As MRC informed
previously, in November 2019, Motiva Enterprises, the US refining arm of
Saudi Aramco, acquired 100% of Flint Hills Resources chemical plant, adjacent to
its Port Arthur, Texas, oil refinery. The Flint Hills plant operates a 1.57
billion-pound-per-year ethylene cracker, a unit producing nylon component
cyclohexane, and a network of pipelines and storage caverns.
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). Supply of exclusively PP random copolymer
increased. |
