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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. |
