Celanese to expand its VAM capacities in China

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, has initiated a capital-efficient expansion of its vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) production unit at the company’s world-class chemical industrial park in Nanjing, China in a move to solidify its global VAM capabilities, as per the company's press release.

This expansion will support the continued growth of its global acetyls business and serve the needs of customers in the Asia region and globally, the company said in its statement.

Celanese is expected to initially increase the annual VAM production capacity at its Nanjing facility by 50,000KT to 60,000KT, with a phased approach of up to 90,000KT total of additional annual production capacity expected.

The expanded VAM production capacity at the Nanjing facility is made possible via a novel, next-generation proprietary Celanese catalyst and advanced technology package that, when complete, is expected to increase the annual VAM nameplate capacity at the Nanjing facility from approximately 300,000KT to nearly 400,000KT.

In addition, Celanese is also planning for a capital efficient 10KT per year expansion of acetic anhydride production at its Nanjing facility, bringing the anhydride nameplate capacity at the site to approximately 130KT by 2022, allowing Celanese to support demand growth.

As MRC reported earlier, in H2 February, 2021, Celanese declared force majeure on its products in the Americas and EMEA region due to the severe winter weather that has heavily curtailed US petrochemicals and refinery production and operations on the US Gulf Coast.

According to MRC's DataScope report, January EVA imports to Russia rose only by 0,07% year on year to 3,084 tonnes from 3,087 tonnes a year earlier, and overall imports of this grade of ethylene copolymer into the Russian Federation dropped in January-December 2020 by 3,41% year on year to 38,170 tonnes (39,520 tonnes in 2019).

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,700 employees worldwide and had 2020 net sales of USD5.7 billion.
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US EPA revokes permit for refinery expansion in Virgin Islands citing pollution

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it has revoked an expansion permit for the Limetree Bay oil refinery in the US Virgin Islands, citing concerns that the area around the facility is overburdened with pollution, reported Reuters.

The decision allows the plant to keep operating but will block ongoing expansion work pending an EPA review to assess measures the facility needs to take to protect nearby residents.

“Withdrawing this permit will allow EPA to reassess what measures are required at the Limetree facility to safeguard the health of local communities in the Virgin Islands, while providing regulatory certainty to the company,” said EPA acting Regional Administrator Walter Mugdan.

The 200,000 barrel per day facility on St. Croix had restarted this year after a decade idle after securing a Clean Air Act “plantwide applicability limit” permit from the Trump administration on Dec. 2, 2020. The permit had allowed it to build additional units without being deemed a new source of pollution, which triggers more stringent pollution controls.

The owner of the refinery, Limetree Bay Ventures, backed by private equity firms EIG and Arclight Capital, challenged requests by the EPA to increase air quality monitoring. The company argued the monitors are not necessary and that it should not have to pay the costs to operate them.

As MRC informed before, earlier this month, CITGO Petroleum Corporation announced its Corpus Christi Refinery had received the prestigious 2020 ENERGY STAR certification, awarded by the US EPA, for the second year in a row.

We remind that in September 2020, Citgo Petroleum Corp said it did not plan to idle its 418,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Lake Charles, Louisiana, refinery damaged by Hurricane Laura. Rumors have circulated since Laura’s passage over the Lake Charles area on Aug. 27 that Citgo was considering shutting the refinery for an indefinite period because of the extent of the damage and continuing low demand for motor fuels in the COVID-19 pandemic.

We also remind that in the first week of July, 2020, Citgo restarted the large gasoline-producing fluid catalytic cracker at its 167,500-barrel-per-day (bpd) Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery.

Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
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Merck KGaA to expand production unit in France

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany) announced that it will add a single-use assembly production unit at its Life Science Center in Molsheim, France, said Chemengonline.

With the EUR25-million investment, the company is accelerating its European expansion plans for this key technology, which is used for the production of Covid-19 vaccines and other lifesaving therapies. Molsheim will be the first site in Europe where the Life Science business sector manufactures the product. Further production sites are located in Danvers, Massachusetts, and Wuxi, China.

"The pandemic has confronted the world with inconceivable challenges. The science and technology efforts of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany have resulted in significant contributions since the outset of Covid-19. Our new European production unit will increase capacity of the urgently needed supply of single-use assemblies to vaccine and therapeutic manufacturers worldwide. Today’s announcement of our expansion in Europe speaks of the company’s global commitment during and beyond this pandemic," said Belen Garijo, Vice Chair of the Executive Board and Deputy CEO of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

The investment in Molsheim will add more than 350 new jobs in total along with 1,700 square meters of ISO7 or ISO5 cleanrooms, using modular building design and existing infrastructure to allow future expansions without any disruptions. The new unit will produce Mobius single-use assemblies, a key offering that is part of the Mobius MyWay program of the company’s Life Science business. It is planned to be operational by the end of 2021.

With more than 1,700 employees of 32 different nationalities, and producing more than 10,000 products, the Molsheim hub is the third largest site globally belonging to the company’s Life Science business. It supplies the world market, exporting more than 85 percent of its production. It hosts three production units dedicated to the manufacture and assembly of products and solutions for pharmaceutical manufacturing processes and applied solutions products for analysis in clinical and industrial environments and water purification systems.

Recently, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany announced expansion projects in its Life Science business sector in Darmstadt, Germany; Cork, Ireland; Buchs, Switzerland; Carlsbad, California; Madison, Wisconsin; Jaffrey, New Hampshire; and Danvers, Massachusetts. At the latter site, the company is currently working to double the local single-use production capacity by the end of 2021. These expansions are part of an ambitious, multi-year program to increase the industrial capacity and Life Science capabilities to support growing global demand for lifesaving medications and to make significant contributions to public health.

As per MRC, Russia's output of chemical products rose in February 2021 by 5.3% year on year. Thus, production of basic chemicals increased year on year by 7.5% in the first two months of 2021. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, mineral fertilizers accounted for the greatest increase in the January-February output. Production of benzene dropped to 113,000 tonnes in February 2021, compared to 120,000 tonnes a month earlier. Overall output of this product reached 241,000 tonnes over the stated period, down by 7.5% year on year.

Headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, Merck opened an OLED application center in Pyeongtaek, Korea, in 2015. Merck Korea now has 11 operation sites and some 1,200 employees and operates businesses in functional materials, health care and life sciences. The functional materials business encompasses advance materials for information technology products such as displays and semiconductors. It also includes cosmetics and paints for automobiles.
Its health care business involves pharmaceuticals and medical devices for treatments of cancer, multiple sclerosis and infertility. The life sciences business deals in an extensive portfolio of over 300,000 products used for protein research, cell biology, antibodies, water purification and microbiome tests.
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Turkish and Chinese converters intend to refuse to buy raw materials due to a sharp jump in prices

MOSCOW (MRC) - Turkish plastics converters intend to fight against a sharp increase in raw material prices and will refuse to buy it from 1 April, 2021, the Turkish Plastics Industry Foundation (PAGEV) Association of Polymers of Turkey said in a statement.

Plastics converters in China also announced a similar campaign. PAGEV and China’s processing and machine manufacturing associations (CPPIA) and CPMIA (China’s processing and machine manufacturing associations) have reached an agreement on action in the polymer market, which includes a moratorium on the purchase of foreign raw materials.

Turkish media quotes PAGEV President Yavuz Eroglu: “We will not buy polymers until stocks of raw materials have dropped to a critical level. price reduction".

Earlier in February, the PAGEV association decided to boycott foreign supplies of raw materials. At the same time, it was proposed to temporarily abolish the import duty on the import of polymers into the country and prohibit local producers, namely the Petkim concern, from selling polymers for export.

Sharp price hikes and shortages of polymers, logistics problems have caused many problems for plastics processors around the world. “The loss of price stability has become a major concern and complaint for all of our industry companies,” Eroglu said during a recent PAGEV board meeting.

Earlier it was reported that the leadership of the Russian Union of Plastics Processors (SPP, Moscow) (SPP, Moscow) appealed to all manufacturers of polymer products with a request to provide copies of official documents confirming the high volatility of polymer prices and cases of refusal or non-compliance with deliveries on contracts with Russian polymer producers in the period from October 1, 2020 to March 19, 2021, as well as on price changes for April 2021. These letters, copies of correspondence, official price lists are required by the SPP to prepare for the work of the group with the participation of federal executive bodies and organizations at a meeting in the Ministry of Industry and Trade under the Government of the Russian Federation, which is scheduled for March 29, 2021.

It was also noted that the Ministry of Industry and Trade is against the regulation of polymer prices in Russia.

According to the ICIS-MRC Price Report, contractual deals for PVC supplies with K64/67 in March were done in Russia in the range of Rb116,000-119,000/tonne CPT Moscow, iincluding VAT, for volumes up to 500 tonnes. The increase against February amounted to Rb4,000-5,000/tonne. Three of the four producers intend to increase the contract prices for April supplies. A price increase of Rb10,000-15,000/tonne was discussed.
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Chinese refineries processed more crude oil than US refineries in 2020

MOSCOW (MRC) -- More crude oil was being refined in China's refineries in April 2020 than in US refineries for the first month on record, and this trend continued for all remaining months in 2020 except for July and August, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Thus, China processed more crude oil than the United States not only because of the unique effects of COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions in 2020, but also because of differences in the longer-term structural refining trends between the two countries.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics only reports the country’s processing volume of crude oil. The most direct comparison to the United States is refiner net inputs of crude oil. US refiners also report total gross inputs into distillation units, which include non-crude liquids such as lease condensate and unfinished oils, making gross inputs about 0.5 million barrels per day (b/d) larger than net crude oil inputs. China’s crude oil processing also exceeded US gross inputs in both May and October 2020.

April 2020 was the first full month for the United States in which responses to the COVID-19 pandemic reduced demand for petroleum products such as gasoline, distillate, and jet fuel. Although net inputs of crude oil to US refiners had seen record declines in April, China’s crude oil processing began increasing above previous levels following a demand increase when COVID-19 cases declined in that country.

China’s refinery runs also started to rise in April 2020 partially because China implemented a policy in 2016 that encourages refiners to refine more petroleum products by fixing product prices at USD40 when the Brent crude oil price falls to less than USD40 per barrel (b). The Brent crude oil price fell and remained less than USD40/b between March and May 2020.

While China processed a record 14.1 million b/d of crude oil in June and further rose to 14.5 million b/d in November, US refinery runs have not yet returned to their March 2020 levels because of a combination of demand reductions and hurricanes in the fall that disrupted refinery processes. Hurricanes Laura and Sally in late August and September, respectively, and Hurricanes Delta and Zeta in October resulted in refinery shut-ins on the Gulf Coast, where more than half of US refining capacity is located. Although some refineries came back online in late 2020, US refinery runs remained lower than historical averages in 2020.

We remind that as MRC informed before, the largest US refinery, Motiva Enterprises’ 607,000 barrel-per-day Port Arthur, Texas, plant, returned to normal operations. The refinery was shut on Feb. 15 when freezing temperatures, rarely seen on the US Gulf Coast, knocked out steam supply. Motiva began restarting the refinery on Feb. 24.

Motiva Chemicals has also resumed operations at its mixed-feed cracker in Port Arthur, USA. The process of restart of this cracker with the capacity of 635,000 mt/year of ethylene and 340,000 mt/year of propylene began on 27 February, 2021, and finished late last week. The cracker wa shut along with the refinery at the same site on 14 February, 2021, because of the deep freeze.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 241,030 tonnes in January 2021 versus 217,890 tonnes a year earlier. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
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