Limetree Bay refinery may resume operations with minimal investment

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The idled Limetree Bay oil refinery could resume operations with “minimal capital” and could “easily” be transformed to produce biofuels, the investment banker hired to attract investors said in a marketing document, reported Reuters.

The St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, refinery filed for bankruptcy in July after investors poured USD4.1 billion into an unsuccessful revival of the aging facility. US regulators halted processing after residents complained of foul odors, oil that was sprayed on nearby homes and contaminated drinking water supplies.

Jefferies Financial Group Inc, which was hired to find a buyer, said in its marketing pitch that “zero facility investment” is required for a restart. It also said the refinery had been fully operational since January 2021 and has “strong government support” at territorial and municipal levels.

It made no mention of the US Environmental Protection Agency order shutting down the plant or requirements to install air monitoring systems before a restart. US prosecutors also are investigating potential criminal violations of the Clean Air Act, a Limetree attorney said during a bankruptcy hearing in early August.

Jefferies did not respond to a request for comment.

In a radio interview on the local national public radio affiliate in mid-August, Limetree Chief Executive Officer Jeff Rinker said that apart from one unit - the coker - that caused the rotten egg odors and spray, the facility was fully operational prior to the shutdown.

Rinker said Limetree implemented all recommendations made by the company that designed the coker, which converts a type of crude oil from other units into motor fuel feedstocks. A buyer would have to invest further to satisfy recommendations made by a independent auditor, Rinker said.

“I’m hopeful that an investor will come in and want to restart the refinery,” said Rinker, chief executive of Limetree since November 2020.

The 210,000 barrel per day refinery is due to receive up to USD25 million in interim financing while its private-equity and other owners seek to restructure nearly USD2 billion in debt.

The plant’s “hydrotreater units (are) easily converted for renewable diesel production,” Jefferies said. US refiners can take advantage of state and federal incentives to produce renewable fuels.

Rinker said that the USVI governor and Department of Planning and Natural Resources would support any restart, but investors were spooked by uncertainty over required EPA approvals.

As MRC informed before, Judge Jones, who is a veteran of refinery restructurings in the Southern District of Texas court, said in July he was concerned about Limetree’s ability to through Chapter 11 with the existing DIP loan. The process of decommissioning the refinery will take several months, the company’s owner, a consortium led by EIG Global Energy Partners, told the Texas court this month.

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 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Major Japanese large firms are to invest about USD6.4 billion to implement six infrastructure projects in Bangladesh under the public-private partnership model, said Thedailystar.

The six companies - which include Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corp, Toyo Engineering Corp, Toshiba Corporation, Japan CCS Co and All Nippon Airways Co - plan to complete the project in end-March 2025, under their proposed “Regional CO2 Resource Utilization Study Business Through Electrolysis Utilizing Artificial Photosynthesis Technology”. Financial details of the project were not disclosed.

Under the plan, Toshiba Energy Systems and Solutions will build a prototype of a full-scale carbon dioxide (CO2) electrolysis unit and conduct demonstration operation of the unit its Hamakawasaki Operations in Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture.

“Through this demonstration project the six companies will contribute to the commercialization of a SAF (sustainable aviation fue) supply chain based on carbon recycling as well as regional revitalization,” they said. The six companies have previously cooperated to combine the CO2 electrolysis technology developed by Toshiba to convert CO2 into carbon monoxide (CO) via the FT process to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and to study carbon recycling business models using P2C.

“This initiative was adopted as a commission project by the Ministry of the Environment and the six companies will study promoting both decarbonization and regional development by utilizing the infrastructure and characteristics of regional areas to achieve carbon recycling within those regions,” the companies said.

As per MRC, Idemitsu Kosan took off-stream its naphtha cracker for a turnaround. The company halted operations at the cracker on September 7, 2020. The cracker is likely to remain under maintenance by end-October, 2020. Located at Tokuyama, Japan, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 690,000 mt/year and propylene production capacity of 110,000 mt/year.

Idemitsu Kosan also operates another cracker in Chiba, Japan, with an ethylene production capacity of 410,000 mt/year.

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 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Crude oil futures were higher in mid-morning trade in Asia Aug. 30 after Hurricane Ida forced the shutdown of more than 95% of the Gulf of Mexico's oil production and the US dollar softened on latest indications from the US Federal Reserve, reported S&P Global.

At 10:25 am Singapore time (0225 GMT), the ICE October Brent futures contract was up 35 cents/b (0.48%) from the previous close at USD73.05/b, while the NYMEX October light sweet crude contract was 3 cents/b (0.06%) higher at USD68.77/b.

"Oil prices were trading higher with Hurricane Ida driving evacuation from offshore rigs and putting a cap on oil supplies in the near term," IG market strategist Yeap Jun Rong said Aug. 30.

Ida was upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane by the US National Hurricane Center Aug. 29 with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph before making landfall south of New Orleans just before noon CT as one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the US Gulf Coast. By 4 pm CT, Ida remained at Category 4 strength, with sustained winds at 130 mph.

The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Aug. 29 reported that 95.65% or 1.741 million b/d of the US Gulf's crude oil was shut in, as well as 93.75% or 2.091 Bcf/d of the region's 2.2 Bcf/d of natural gas production,. An estimated 288 offshore platforms were evacuated -- 51.4% of the US Gulf's total.

The US dollar has also weakened since Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at the recent Jackson Hole Symposium said the central bank may begin tapering its bond buying program before year end. The market had largely expected Powell to announce the start of the tapering program in September, and the unexpectedly dovish stance weighed heavily on the dollar.

Amid the upswing in oil prices, market watchers remained cautious ahead of the OPEC+ alliance meeting scheduled for Sept. 1.

However ING analysts said in a note: "We do not foresee any fireworks from the group following the more recent recovery in prices and we expect that they will continue the easing of their supply cuts as planned."

As MRC informed previously, crude oil stockpiles fell modestly in early August, while gasoline inventories dipped to their lowest level since November, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Crude inventories fell by 447,000 barrels in the week to Aug. 6 to 438.8 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.3 million-barrel drop. Overall crude inventories have been on the decline for several weeks due to increased demand.

We remind that US crude oil production is expected to fall by 160,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2021 to 11.12 million bpd, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a monthly report, a smaller decline than its previous forecast for a drop of 210,000 bpd.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - The Polyplastic Group, the largest manufacturer of polymer piping systems in Russia, has launched a new line for the production of three-layer polymer pipes with a diameter of 160 to 450 mm at the Sibgazapparat Tyumen pipe plant, the company said.

"Investments in the amount of Rb62 m in new production will lead to an increase in the supply of innovative products with a long service life (more than 50 years) and unique technology to strategically important construction and housing and communal services facilities. New equipment has been purchased for the production of innovative products at the pipe plant," he said general director of the plant Oleg Kukharevich.

The produced three-layer pipes have increased resistance to tensile forces due to the absence of soot in the carrier layer.

"The launch of a new line of three-layer polymer pipes is a significant event for the formation of a petrochemical cluster in the Tyumen region. The petrochemical cluster will unite industrial and service enterprises of the Tobolsk industrial site and enterprises engaged in the processing of petrochemical products," the message says.

The first batch of three-layer tubular products from the Sibgazapparat plant will go to a facility in Perm. The new line will cover the demand for pipes of the entire Ural Federal District, Perm Territory and Orenburg Region, and its more active use will increase the quality and safety of utility and industrial facilities networks.

Earlier it was reported that the Novomoskovsk Polymer Pipes Plant (NZPT), a member of the Polyplastic Group (Moscow), on 25 September, 2020 opened the first production of a special reinforced profile made of unplasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in Russia for the restoration of pipelines. The Polyplastic Group's investments in new production exceeded Rb 140 m.

According to MRC's ScanPlast, the estimated consumption of PE in Russia amounted to 1.176.86 m tonnes in the first half of 2021, which is 5% more than in the same period a year earlier. The supply of exclusively low-density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased.

The Polyplastic Group was founded in 1991 and today is a leading European supplier of thermoplastic compounds and polyethylene pipes for construction with an annual turnover of about EUR1 billion. The company's factories are located in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The group unites 20 enterprises and exports products to more than 50 countries.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- UK supermarket chain Tesco has announced it will start collecting flexible plastics packaging at all of its large stores nationwide after a successful trial earlier in the year, said Circularonline.

The supermarket first trialled in-store collections for soft and flexible plastics at ten stores in 2020, during which customers returned more than ten times the expected amount of plastic.

Then, this March, Tesco began adding the recycling points to 171 stores across Wales and the South West of England.

Tesco has now announced that it has added the facility to every large UK store, following further positive feedback from customers. When those using the 171 stores in Wales and the South-West were polled, 85% said the facility helped them to recycle more than they would have done otherwise, with the majority finding it convenient to use.

Plastics collected by Tesco are washed and sorted before being directed to a recycler. Most of the collected material is made into new products and packaging and Tesco has vowed that material that cannot be reprocessed in this way will be kept out of landfill, primarily through energy-from-waste systems.

During the initial trials in 2020, collected plastics were used to make food-grade packaging for Tesco own-brand cheeses. In a recent sample, 80% of the plastic collected was recycled and 20% was sent to energy-from-waste generation facilities.

Packaging formats that will be recycled under the scheme include bread bags, crisp packets, salad bags and sweet wrappers. Tesco is anticipating that it will collect and recycle around 1,000 tonnes of plastics annually under the scheme.

As MRC informed earlier, 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. 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.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC