MOSCOW (MRC) --- Petrochemical producer Lyondell Basell Industries does not plan to perform major maintenance at its global assets, including a Houston refinery, in the second quarter of 2021, said Chief Executive Bob Patel during a Friday morning conference call with Wall Street analysts, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
"Deferred turnarounds from 2020 are resulting in high levels of planned maintenance downtime for many of our competitors during the second quarter," Patel said. "Lyondell Basell has no major planned maintenance for the second quarter at any of the global assets that we operate."
The company's 263,776 barrel-per-day (bpd) Houston refinery is running at nearly full production, said Michael McMurray, chief financial officer. In the first quarter, the Houston refinery operated at an average 57% of capacity because of the severe cold weather that shut it for about a month beginning in mid-February, McMurray said.
Patel said he hopes that the company's refining segment, which recorded a USD110-million loss in the first quarter of 2021, will return to break even in the third quarter of this year.
As per MRC, LyondellBasell Industries N.V. (Rotterdam the Netherlands) announced another step towards its ambition to advance the circular economy by making virgin quality polymers from raw materials derived from plastic waste at its Wesseling, Germany, site. Produced by the thermal conversion of plastic waste, this raw material is converted into ethylene and propylene in the LyondellBasell production facilities, and then processed into polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) in the downstream units for plastics production. The first use of raw material derived from plastic waste follows the company’s successful production of plastic materials made from renewable-based raw materials such as used cooking oil, which helps to reduce CO2 over the product life cycle and reduce the use of fossil-based raw materials.
As per MRC, LyondellBasell, the world's largest polyolefins producer, has declared a force majeure (FM) on shipments of some polypropylene (PP) grades from its Ferrara plant in Italy as of May 3, according to NCT with reference to a source familiar with the issue. This plant is able to produce 285.000 tons/year of PP. At the time of press, no details were shared regarding the reason or duration of the FM.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
LyondellBasell is one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world. Driven by its 13,000 employees around the globe, LyondellBasell produces materials and products that are key to advancing solutions to modern challenges like enhancing food safety through lightweight and flexible packaging, protecting the purity of water supplies through stronger and more versatile pipes, and improving the safety, comfort and fuel efficiency of many of the cars and trucks on the road. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
MRC