Eni has announced closure of cracking plant of the subsidiary Versalis in Porto Marghera

MOSCOW (MRC) -- There is more uncertainty over Versalis’ plans for its Porto Marghera, Italy cracker closure following local media reports that the company has taken the earlier declaration for a Spring 2022 stoppage, off the table, said the company.

The Venice bio-refinery is preparing to eliminate the use of palm oil in its production of biofuels. Recently, it submitted documentation to qualify for an environmental impact assessment to build new units that will upgrade the feedstock pretreatment system installed in June 2018, which allow for the treatment of crude vegetable oils, used plant-based cooking oils and used animal fats.

Currently, the systems in Porto Marghera are able to process about 7.5 tonnes of used cooking oil and animal fats per hour; with the construction of the new biomass treatment lines, the entire production capacity of the EcofiningTM plant will be fulfilled with biological materials from the waste and residue chains, expanding feedstock options beyond those incentivised by European and national standards, thus definitively eliminating palm oil from the production of biofuels.

Since 2014 Eni's Venice biorefinery has produced hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO), which is added to diesel fuel to meet European and national regulatory requirements which state that an increasing proportion of fuels must be made from raw materials from renewable sources. In 2020, with an authorised capacity of 400,000 tonnes per year, it processed around 220,000 tonnes of raw materials, of which more than 25% consisted of used cooking oils, animal fats and other waste vegetable oils. From 2023 Eni will no longer use palm oil in its production processes.

As per MRC, Versalis S.p.A. (San Donato Milanese), the chemical company of Italian energy major Eni, has licensed to Enter Engineering Pte. Ltd. a Low-Density Polyethylene/Ethyl Vinyl Acetate (LDPE/EVA) swing unit to be built as part of a new Gas-to-Chemical Complex based on MTO-Methanol to Olefins technology to be located in the Karakul area in the Bukhara region of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

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).

Eni is an Italian multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Rome. It has operations in in 79 countries, and is currently Italy's largest industrial company. The Italian government owns a 30.3% golden share in the company, 3.93% held through the state Treasury and 26.37% held through the Cassa depositi e prestiti. Another 39.40% of the shares are held by BNP Paribas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China boosted the flow of crude oil into storage tanks in March as strong imports and domestic output exceeded an increase in the volume of fuel being processed by refiner, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

About 1.63 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude was directed into commercial and strategic inventories last month, up from about 920,000 bpd in the first two months of 2021, according to calculations based on official data. The increase in storage was mainly a reflection of rising crude imports in March, which reached 11.69 million bpd, above the 11.08 million bpd reported by customs for the first two months of the year.

Domestic crude output was also higher in March at 4.02 million bpd, up 3.3% from the same month last year, and also above the 3.89 million bpd in the first two months of 2021. China doesn't disclose the volumes of crude flowing into strategic and commercial stockpiles. But an estimate can be made by deducting the amount of crude processed from the total amount of crude available from imports and domestic output.

China's refineries processed 59.79 million tonnes of crude in March, equivalent to about 14.08 million bpd, according to data issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on April 16. This was slightly below the 14.13 million bpd from January and February, but 19.7% above what was processed in March last year.

However, caution is warranted with year-on-year comparisons given that China's economy was largely locked down in March last year as the authorities moved to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Putting crude imports together with domestic production results in about 15.71 million bpd of oil being available to refiners, leaving a gap of 1.63 million bpd once the throughput is subtracted.

The volume of crude being stored in March was above the recent trend, given that inventory flows for the whole of 2020 were about 1.29 million bpd. Last year was notable for storage inflows as China snapped up large volumes of crude when prices plunged during the coronavirus pandemic, which coincided with a brief price war between top exporters Saudi Arabia and Russia.

China imported so much crude in the middle part of last year that it resulted in long vessel queues outside ports, as the world's biggest crude buyers struggled to offload cargoes. By the end of last year Chinese refiners tapered imports as they exhausted permits, resulting in rare inventory draws in October and December.

As per MRC, China’s daily refinery throughput surged 19.7% in March from a year earlier, as refiners ramped up operations to meet robust fuel demand and to build up inventory before shutting down for overhaul. China processed 59.79 million tons of crude oil last month, data issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Friday. That is equivalent to 14.08 million barrels per day (bpd), easing off 14.13 million bpd averaged in the first two months.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated polyethylene (PE) consumption totalled 356,370 tonnes in the first two month of 2021, down by 9% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to the Russian market was 246,870 tonnes in January-February 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd., or CNOOC, targeted to produce 545 million-555 million barrels of oil equivalent, or 1.49 million-1.52 million boe/d, of oil and gas in 2021, up about 4.5% from its estimated production of 528 million boe in 2020, on the back of contribution from its 19 new projects, including Buzzard oil field phase II, reported S&P Global with reference to CFO Xie Weizhi's statement in the company's 2021 business strategy briefing call.

The estimated output in 2020 outpaced its target of 505 million-515 million boe set early last year.

The 19 new projects to start up in 2021 are expected to contribute 221,232 b/d toward the company's peak production. In comparison, CNOOC commenced production at eight new projects last year, which contributed a total of 174,652 boe/d to its peak output.

To meet its development target, CNOOC lifted its budget in development to account for 61% of it total capital expenditure of Yuan 90-100 billion (USD13.92 billion-USD15.47 billion), Xie said, adding that the 2021 budget was set on the Brent price assumption of USD50/b.

Looking forward, CNOOC targeted to produce 590 million-600 million boe of oil and gas in 2022 and 640 million-650 million boe in 2023, representing above 8% annual growth, according to Xie.

Meanwhile, the proportion of domestic production was set to fall to 66% in its global output from 68% in 2021, suggesting more overseas projects would start up or resume production as oil price recovers. CNOOC has cut its oil sand and shale production in North America in 2020 due to low oil price.

CNOOC's CEO Xu Keqiang continued to emphasize the future target to significantly lift gas output to account for 30% of the company's production mix from the current 21%.

Lifting of gas output was also a part of the state-owned CNOOC's effort to promote low-carbon transformation to meet China's net zero carbon emissions plan by 2060.

The company planned to invest above 5% of its annual budgets in the coming years in new energy sector from the current 3%-5%, especially offshore wind power.

As MRC informed before, CNOOC Dongfang, a subsidiary of CNOOC, halted production at its propylene plant in Hainan province on March 2 for a schedule turnaround. It was expected that the maintenance at this plant with a capacity of 150,000 mt/year of propylene to continue until mid-April 2021.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market was 246,870 tonnes in January-February 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.

CNOOC is China's third largest national oil company after CNPC and Sinopec. The company was founded in 1982. The headquarters is located in Beijing. The company is engaged in the production, processing and marketing of oil and natural gas offshore China. The Chinese government owns 70% of the company's shares.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil, the largest private US company, has floated a proposal for a public-private carbon storage project that would collect planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from US petrochemical plants and bury them in deep under the Gulf of Mexico, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The plan would require "USD100 billion or more" from companies and government agencies to store 50 million metric tons of CO2 by 2030, with capacity potentially doubling by 2040, Joe Blommaert, president of Exxon's Low Carbon Solutions business, said in an interview.

Blommaert outlined the plan on Monday, about two months after the largest U.S. oil producer appointed him to run a new Low Carbon Solutions business that could profit from selling carbon-reduction technology and services.

Houston has a large concentration of "hard-to-decarbonize" industry near the Gulf, said Blommaert. "We could create an economy of scale where we can reduce the cost of the carbon dioxide mitigation, create jobs and reduce the emissions," he said.

Exxon, which suffered a USD22.4 billion loss last year, is battling shareholder groups that want the company to shift to cleaner fuels, including a hedge fund that wants four board seats to drive proposed changes. Exxon has pledged to increase spending on low-carbon projects and lower the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions.

While many oil and gas companies have seized on carbon capture programs to offset emissions, "it is not something that's going to save them from having to go through the energy transition," said Rob Schuwerk, executive director of the North American office of Carbon Tracker Initiative, a think-tank that analyzes the financial implications of a clean fuel transition.

Burying carbon dioxide underground "is not going to be a solution that works to preserve fossil fuel industries for an extended period of time," said Schuwerk.

The carbon storage project is proposed for the Houston Ship Channel, a 50-mile (80-km) long waterway that is part of the Port of Houston and home to dozens of refineries and chemical plants. Exxon acknowledges that the proposal will require enormous support from other companies and from federal, state and local government agencies.

The company is contacting potential partners on the project among its refining and chemical rivals.

The project aims to capture CO2 from the 50 largest industrial emitters along the Houston Ship Channel, said Guy Powell, vice president of Low Carbon Solutions. CO2 would be piped to offshore reservoirs up to 6,000 feet (1.83 km) below the sea floor, he said.

Exxon projects carbon capture will be a USD2 trillion market by 2040. The company has supported a carbon tax that would use market incentives to reduce emissions and supported the United States rejoining the Paris climate accord.

As MRC informed previously, Sinopec Engineering (Group) and ExxonMobil (Huizhou) Chemical (EMHCC) have just entered into a BEPC (basic design, engineering, procurement and construction) contract for the proposed Huizhou Chemical Complex Project (Phase I). The main units of the project include a 1.6 million tonnes/year ethylene flexible feed steam cracker, downstream polymer and derivative units and utilities. The main product units include two performance polyethylene (PE) lines and two differentiated performance polypropylene (PP) lines.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated polyethylene (PE) consumption totalled 356,370 tonnes in the first two month of 2021, down by 9% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to the Russian market was 246,870 tonnes in January-February 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world"s oil and about 2% of the world"s energy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Cyclyx International, a consortium-based feedstock management company with a mission to increase the recyclability of plastic from 10% to 90%, and Braskem, the largest polyolefins producer in the Americas and leading producer of biopolymers in the world, have announced that Braskem has joined Cyclyx as a member, as per Cyclyx' press release.

Besides, Braskem has appointed Geoffrey Inch, Braskem’s Sustainability and Circular Economy Director, to the Cyclyx Executive Advisory Board.

As a member of the Cyclyx consortium, Braskem will have access to the Cyclyx platform which includes an integrated set of innovations including chemical characterization of plastics and predictive modelling of feedstock sources to product pathways, custom feedstock recipes, and customized supply chains. These innovations aim to deliver waste plastic feedstock appropriate for all existing and new mechanical and advanced recycling pathways.

"As the North American leader in polypropylene, Braskem is thrilled to be a founding member of Cyclyx,” says Geoffrey Inch, Sustainability and Circular Economy Director at Braskem. “Braskem has a long history in the use of sustainable feedstock and is committed to working collaboratively to increase the circularity of plastics. We believe Cyclyx addresses some of the key challenges that will allow advanced recycling to scale, which is an important step in the development of certified circular polypropylene for our clients.”

As MRC reportved earlier, in late 2020, Braskem announced its latest sustainability ambitions to significantly expand its efforts to eliminate plastic waste in the environment by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

We remind that Brazilian petrochemical producer Braskem's 450,000 mt/year PP plant in LaPorte, Texas, along the Houston Ship Channel completed its initial commercial production, as per the company's statement as of Sept. 10. "The launch of commercial production at our new world-class PP production line in La Porte clearly affirms Braskem's position as the North American polypropylene market leader," Braskem America CEO Mark Nikolich said in a statement. With a USD750 million investment, the new PP plant's construction started in October 2017 and was completed in June, 2020.

Braskem operates five other US PP plants in Texas, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, with a cumulative capacity of 1.57 million mt/year that the company acquired. The new plant in La Porte, Texas, is Braskem America's first PP new build.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market was 246,870 tonnes in January-February 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.

Braskem S.A. produces petrochemicals and generates electricity. The Company produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylenes, butadiene, butene, isoprene, dicyclopentediene, MTBE, caprolactam, ammonium sulfate, cyclohexene, polyethylene theraphtalat, polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
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