Limetree Bay refinery to shut indefinitely

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Limetree Bay Energy will shut its St. Croix refinery indefinitely due to financial problems, the company said, after a series of operational setbacks shuttered the facility, reported Reuters.

The 210,000-barrel-per-day refinery had only restarted in February after being idle for nearly a decade, but was forced to shut in May after the facility sprayed nearby neighborhoods with a petroleum mist and residents complained of breathing problems.

Last month, the US Environmental Protection Agency ordered the plant shut for at least 60 days after those incidents, which also contaminated the community's water supply. The EPA also ordered the plant to install and operate 18 sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide monitors on St. Croix in order to restart.

EIG-backed Limetree has been unable to secure the necessary funding to restart the plant, and will lay off approximately 271 employees effective Sept. 19, the company said.

The refinery will begin preparations for an extended shutdown, including purging gases from all of the units and removing any residual oil and products in the lines.

Earlier this month, Reuters exclusively reported that Arclight Capital, which had a majority stake in the refinery, exited its position and removed the refinery from its portfolio in April after its fund experienced hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

The oil storage terminal will not be affected by the decision to suspend operations.

The refinery restarted in February under private equity ownership. It was designed to profit from an international clean-air marine fuel mandate known as IMO 2020. However, the plant suffered repeated setbacks, including high levels of corrosion in pipes and the decimation of demand by the COVID-19 pandemic. The restart was delayed more than a year and ran more than a billion dollars over budget. Limetree’s chief executive was replaced in November.

We remind that in late March 2021, EPA said it had 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. The decision allowed the plant to keep operating but blocked ongoing expansion work pending an EPA review to assess measures the facility needs to take to protect nearby residents.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 744,130 tonnes in the first four month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, PP deliveries to the Russian market were 523,900 tonnes in January-April 2021, up by 55% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased.
MRC

Oxy withdraws staff from its US Gulf of Mexico facilities ahead of tropical storm

Oxy withdraws staff from its US Gulf of Mexico facilities ahead of tropical storm

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Occidental Petroleum Corp (Oxy) said it was withdrawing staff and implementing storm precautions at their US Gulf of Mexico offshore facilities ahead of a brewing tropical storm, reported Reuters.

A weather disturbance over the Gulf of Mexico could become a tropical storm by Friday and take aim at the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, the US National Weather Service said on Thursday.

“All of our facilities have plans to prepare for weather-related events and are implementing those procedures,” Occidental said on its website. It did not comment on production.

BP and Shell said they were monitoring the situation.

Tropical storm conditions could begin Friday along portions of the central Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Alabama/Florida border. Rainfall of up to 12 inches in isolated areas could hit the Gulf Coast and the Southern Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.

As MRC informed earlier, Chevron temporarily shut in production June 18 from two offshore Gulf of Mexico oil and gas platforms and evacuated some staff, ahead of a weather system that was expected to strengthen into a tropical storm and make landfall in southeast Louisiana.

We remind that Chevron Corp has restarted the 112,229 barrel-per-day (bpd) Pasadena, Texas, refinery night after completing a multi-unit overhaul that was extended because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The entire refinery was shut from mid-April, 2020, until mid-July, 2020 with the last units returning to production on Tuesday, 14 July. The overhaul was originally to finish in mid-June, but was extended to mid-July.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 744,130 tonnes in the first four month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, PP deliveries to the Russian market were 523,900 tonnes in January-April 2021, up by 55% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased.
MRC

Gerber and Terracycle partner to launch recycling program throughout Canada

Gerber and Terracycle partner to launch recycling program throughout Canada

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Baby food and baby products maker Gerber has announced a new partnership with international recycler TerraCycle to recover hard-to-recycle baby food packaging on a national scale throughout Canada, said Canplastics.

Parents are invited to sign up on the Gerber Recycling Program page at terracycle.com and mail in baby food packaging that’s currently not municipally recyclable, including flexible plastic bags, pouches and inner bags, using a prepaid shipping label. Once collected, the packaging is cleaned, melted down and then remolded to make new products.

The Gerber Recycling Program is free and open to any interested individual, school, office, or community organization nationwide. As an added incentive, for every pound of packaging waste sent to TerraCycle through the Gerber Recycling Program, registered participants can earn one-dollar to donate to a non-profit, school or charitable organization of their choice.

Gerber is a subsidiary of Nestle. These efforts on sustainable packaging build on more than a decade of progress and investment to achieve Nestle Canada’s ambitious sustainability goals to make 100 per cent of its packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025.

As per MRC, Styrenics Circular Solutions (SCS), a value chain initiative to increase the circularity of styrenics, announced that it has successfully demonstrated that polystyrene (PS) is mechanically recyclable to food contact standards. In cooperation with the Fraunhofer-Institute fur Verfahrenstechnik und Verpackung IVV, SCS performed so-called challenge tests, which confirmed the high cleaning efficiency of the mechanical recycling technology for polystyrene to remove impurities originating from waste streams. These results enable the first application for an opinion of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on the use of recycled polystyrene (r-PS) as food contact material.

As per ICIS-MRC Price Report, Gazprom neftekhim Salavat will shut its production for a scheduled one-month maintenance in mid-July. The average spot styrene monomer (SM) prices were fluctuated in Europe in a narrow range of USD1,160-1,175/tonne this week. Demand for Russian expandable polystyrene (EPS) was strong this month.

MRC

W.R. Grace raises July prices of its FCC catalysts on global refining industry recovery from pandemic

W.R. Grace raises July prices of its FCC catalysts on global refining industry recovery from pandemic

MOSCOW (MRC) -- W. R. Grace & Co. stated that it will increase prices for its Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) catalysts by 3 to 9% in 2021 based on product type and specific customer commitments, according to Stockhouse.

This increase will be effective July 1, 2021 or as contracts allow.

As the global refining industry recovers from the pandemic and margins for refined products have strengthened, Grace is seeing significant interest from refiners to rapidly return to using premium catalyst technologies to increase FCC unit profitability. Premium catalysts help relieve operating constraints, facilitate increased operating rates, and maximize product yields, thereby increasing profitability for refineries.

“Our FCC technologies, coupled with industry-leading technical support, have consistently outperformed alternatives, often returning value of more than a dollar per barrel to the refiner,” said Tom Petti, Grace’s President, Refining Technologies.

As Grace continues to deliver increasing value to its customers with premium technology, it also faces rising costs for certain key raw materials and energy, including aluminum-derived chemicals and natural gas, as well as freight and logistics cost increases. Grace remains focused on driving productivity through increased efficiencies; however, these efforts cannot completely offset current inflationary trends. The increase in catalyst prices will partially offset this inflationary trend while sustaining on-going investment in new technology, enhanced technical services, and leading manufacturing capabilities.

As MRC reported previously, earlier this month, Albemarle Corporation, a leader in the global specialty chemicals industry, announced that it had completed the sale of its Fine Chemistry Services business to W. R. Grace & Co. for approximately USD570 million, consisting of USD300 million in cash, and the issuance to Albemarle of preferred equity of a W. R. Grace & Co. subsidiary having an aggregate stated value of USD270 million. The sale includes Albemarle's operations in Tyrone, Pennsylvania and South Haven, Michigan.

We remind that in 2018, W. R. Grace & Co. completed the USD416 million acquisition of the Polyolefin Catalysts business of Albemarle Corporation. The acquired business primarily develops and manufactures proprietary and custom-manufactured single-site catalysts as well as metallocenes and activators used in the production of plastic resins. The transaction also includes a comprehensive series of highly optimized Ziegler-Natta catalysts for polyethylene (PE) production.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 744,130 tonnes in the first four month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) deliveries to the Russian market were 523,900 tonnes in January-April 2021, up by 55% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased.

A leader in polyolefin catalysts and licensing, W. R. Grace has the world’s broadest portfolio of PP and PE catalyst technologies used to produce thermoplastic resins for a variety of applications. A leading innovator and strategic partner to its customers, Grace supplies catalyst solutions for all polyolefin processes, as well as PP process technology and process controls. Grace employs approximately 3,700 people in over 30 countries.
MRC

Nova Chemicals names Victor Alvarado as senior VP, operations and engineering

Nova Chemicals names Victor Alvarado as senior VP, operations and engineering

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Calgary-based Nova Chemicals Corp. has named Victor Alvarado as its new senior vice president, operations and engineering, effective July 1, said Canplastics.

In a June 10 news release, Nova said that Alvarado – who has over 30 years’ global manufacturing experience – will be responsible for the “safe, reliable and competitive operations of the company’s manufacturing facilities and its support functions.” He will also play a “pivotal role in the safe and successful completion of the company’s significant growth investments in Sarnia, Ont., while providing strategic leadership to ensure world-class competitiveness of Nova’s manufacturing assets."

Alvarado, who will be based out of Calgary, will also become a member of Nova’s senior executive committee. "Victor is a very experienced and well-respected global petrochemicals executive with a proven track record of leading manufacturing organizations to higher levels of reliability and turnaround performance in the U.S., Europe, and Asia," Nova president and CEO Luis Sierra said. “His experience and insight will be a tremendous asset to Nova as we continue to position the company as a leading low-carbon player in the olefins and polymers industry."

A graduate of the University of Illinois with a degree in Chemical Engineering, Alvarado has previously worked at BP and its predecessor company, Amoco, in various engineering, operations and commercial roles, culminating as vice president of global aromatics, before being named as operations director, global aromatics at Ineos.

As per MRC, NOVA plans to increase HDPE prices by 7 cents per pound (USD154 per tonne) and 5 cents per pound (USD110 per tonne) for all other grades of polyethylene from June 1, 2021, according to the company's letter to customers. According to the letter, this is in addition to the company's earlier announced price hike of 6 cents per pound (USD132 per tonne) in May.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 744,130 tonnes in the first four month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, PP deliveries to the Russian market were 523,900 tonnes in January-April 2021, up by 55% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased.
MRC