MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Prax Group has completed the acquisition of the 110,000-b/d Lindsey refinery at Killinghome, UK, from Total, reported Chemweek with reference to the company's statement.
The value of the acquisition was not disclosed. Following the completion of the deal that was first announced in June 2020, the Prax Group has finalized a crude oil and feedstock supply agreement with global commodities giant Trafigura.
The Prax Group, a physical oil trading and logistics company, will purchase crude oil and refinery feedstocks from Trafigura for all of its requirements for the re-named Prax Lindsey oil refinery.
"This arrangement is an important step in the group's plans for the long-term growth of the refinery and it will pave the way to further strengthen our long-term relationship with Trafigura," Sanjeev Kumar, Prax Group CEO, said in the statement.
A shakeup of the European refinery sector is underway following a demand slump arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Royal Dutch Shell put its subsidiary Dansk Shell up for sale in June last year, which included the 68,000-b/d Fredericia refinery in Denmark.
Even before the pandemic struck, a wave of rationalization was expected to sweep through Europe, as the region was caught between flagging domestic oil demand and competition from new super-sized refineries east of the Suez Canal.
More than 4 million b/d of new refining capacity will have been added to the world by 2023, mainly in the Middle East Gulf and China, according to Hedi Grati, head of Europe/CIS refining research at IHS Markit.
Overall, Europe currently has nameplate refining capacity of 14.9 million b/d, and utilization rates were around 12.35 million b/d in 2019, according to IHS Markit data. But IHS Markit forecast crude runs will fall to just 10.8 million b/d by 2025, according to Grati. IHS Markit analysts predict global oil demand will not return to levels seen in 2019 until 2023.
OPIS is an IHS Markit company.
As MRC wrote earlier, within the framework of its net zero strategy, Total will convert its Grandpuits refinery (Seine-et-Marne) into a zero-crude platform and will invest more then EUR500 mln into this project. By 2024 the platform will focus on four new industrial activities: production of renewable diesel primarily intended for the aviation industry, production of bioplastics, plastics recycling and operation of two photovoltaic solar power plants.
We remind that in November 2019, Total disclosed that itis evaluating construction of a new gas cracker at its Deasan, South Korea, joint venture (JV) with Hanwha Chemical.
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.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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