SABIC Europe lifts force majeure on PE shipments from Gelen and Gelsenkirchen plants

SABIC Europe lifts force majeure on PE shipments from Gelen and Gelsenkirchen plants

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SABIC Europe, part of Saudi chemical manufacturing company - SABIC, has lifted the force majeure (FM) on polyethylene (PE) products from Geleen and Gelsenkirchen plants, according to NCT with reference to a letter sent to its customers.

The FM was lifted as of August 30, 2021, after the feedstock pipeline has been successfully restored, which was damaged by the flooding of the river Maas back in late July.

According to the letter, the repair of the feedstock pipeline allowed the company to ramp up its operations, while the company is still in the process of recovering its stock position.

SABIC Europe has a total PE capacity of 1.48 million tons/year in Geleen, the Netherlands and Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

As MRC reported earlier, in May 2021, SABIC signed a joint agreement with BASF and Linde to develop and demonstrate solutions for electrically heated steam cracker furnaces. The partners had already jointly worked on concepts to use renewable electricity instead of the fossil fuel gas typically used for the heating process. With this innovative approach focusing on one of the petrochemical industries’ core processes, the parties strive to offer a promising solution to significantly contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions within the chemical industry.

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.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the world's market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
MRC

Chevron and Enterprise to partner on carbon capture, utilization and storage study

Chevron and Enterprise to partner on carbon capture, utilization and storage study

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Chevron U.S.A. Inc., through its Chevron New Energies division, and a subsidiary of Enterprise Products Partners L.P. announced a framework to study and evaluate opportunities for carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) from their respective business operations in the US Midcontinent and Gulf Coast, according to BusinessWire.

The companies expect the initial phase of the study in which they will evaluate specific business opportunities to last about six months.

“This joint effort has the potential to advance our ongoing work to grow our lower carbon businesses with commercial scale using the industry expertise both companies bring to the project”

“This joint effort has the potential to advance our ongoing work to grow our lower carbon businesses with commercial scale using the industry expertise both companies bring to the project,” said Jeff Gustavson, president of Chevron New Energies. “International climate change scientists working with the United Nations have identified carbon capture as a critical technology needed to help the global energy system transition to a lower carbon future.”

The companies have successfully worked together on prior business opportunities and believe they bring complementary capabilities to successfully pursue CCUS. Projects resulting from the evaluation would seek to combine Enterprise’s extensive midstream pipeline and storage network with Chevron’s sub-surface expertise to create opportunities to capture, aggregate, transport and sequester carbon dioxide in support of the evolving energy landscape.

As MRC reported earlier, in August 2021, Chevron and other partners said they are investing in a startup to build modular waste-to-green hydrogen and renewable synthetic fuel facilities in northern California with tentative plans to eventually grow worldwide. The USD20 million investment in Wyoming-based Raven SR is focused on technology to develop combustion-free, green hydrogen for transportation that is cleaner than so-called blue hydrogen derived from natural gas.

We remind that Chevron Phillips Chemical, a joint venture of Phillips 66 and Chevron, will make a final investment decision on a new cracker in far southeast Texas in 2022, followed by an FID in 2023 on an USD8 billion joint venture petrochemical complex along the US Gulf Coast in 2023.

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.

Headquartered in San Ramon, California, Chevron Corporation is the the second-largest integrated energy company in the United States and among the largest corporations in the world. Chevron is involved in upstream activities including exploration and production, downstream activities including refining, marketing and transportation, and advanced energy technology. Chevron is also invested in power generation and gasification processes.

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. is an American midstream natural gas and crude oil pipeline company with headquarters in Houston, Texas. It acquired GulfTerra in September 2004. The company ranked No. 105 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue
MRC

Berry to expand polypropylene capacity in North America

Berry to expand polypropylene capacity in North America

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Packaging supplier Berry Global Group Inc. has announced plans to spend more than USD110 million to expand its polypropylene thermoforming capacity in North America, said Canplastics.

The investment is designed to allow the Evansville, Ind.-based company to increase the manufacture of clear drink cups and lids for quick-service restaurants, coffee shops, convenience stores, and other foodservice markets.

“Foodservice brand owners are steadily increasing their forecasted volumes with our production for access to our 30-plus active patents across clear cups and lids,” Berry officials said in a Sept. 14 news release. “In addition, customized plastic cup and lid brand owner solutions are a rapidly increasing market trend, pulling volume from alternative substrates since 2017."

The news release also noted that polypropylene is viewed as one of the most sustainable and environmentally responsible transparent substrates available in the market today. "Our increased capacity will produce clear cups and clear lids made of polypropylene ( PP), which can be recycled into new packaging or one of the many other end markets for PP,” the company said.

Berry did not announce exactly where all of the expansions will take place, but did say they are expected to be operational in 2022, and to create a total of 200 new jobs.

As MRC informed earlier, Berry Global Group, Inc. (Evansville, Indiana) says it will break ground in September on a new polypropylene (PP) recycling facility in Leamington, United Kingdom, that it says will produce food-grade materials with a target purity standard of 99.9%. The new facility will be housed in a purpose-built, net-zero carbon, centrally located 13,000-square-meter, or 139,931-square-foot facility, offsetting CO2 emissions with local tree planting.

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.

Berry Global Group, Inc. create innovative packaging and engineered products. Harnessing the strength in its diversity and industry leading talent of 47,000 global employees across more than 295 locations, the company partners with customers to develop, design, and manufacture innovative products with an eye toward the circular economy.
MRC

US Gulf oil companies resume efforts to repair major damage after Hurricane Ida as Nicholas recedes

US Gulf oil companies resume efforts to repair major damage after Hurricane Ida as Nicholas recedes

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Energy companies worked to restore pipeline service and electricity after Tropical Storm Nicholas passed through, allowing them to resume efforts to repair the significant damage caused by Hurricane Ida two weeks ago, reported Reuters.

Nicholas, downgraded to a tropical depression late Tuesday, caused rain, flooding and power outages in Texas and Louisiana, where some refineries remained offline in the wake of Hurricane Ida. The earlier storm shuttered most US Gulf offshore oil and gas production.

Colonial Pipeline, the largest US fuel line, resumed gasoline and diesel shipments on Wednesday after Nicholas passed.

Royal Dutch Shell said it can resume production at its Perdido offshore oil platform that was shut by Nicholas once power is restored at another facility. US liquefied natural gas producer Freeport LNG said processing at its Texas coast facility was halted, likely due to a power outage.

Oil prices rose about 2% on Wednesday after a larger-than-expected decline in US crude inventories. Markets are very tight, said Infrastructure Capital Advisors analyst Andrew Meleney, with gasoline and other refined product inventories near five-year lows.

More than 39% of the US Gulf of Mexico's production of crude and natural gas remained shut, offshore drilling regulator Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said, following Hurricane Ida.

The storm has removed 25 million barrels of oil and 30.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas from the market. About 720,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude production and 1.075 billion cubic feet per day of gas remained offline on Tuesday.

Nicholas caused widespread power outages as it passed over the Houston area Monday night and Tuesday morning. There were 116,000 homes and businesses in Texas without power early on Wednesday, down from more than 500,000 on Tuesday.

Texas coastal oil refineries sailed through Nicholas. But a few in Louisiana are working to restart after Hurricane Ida, including Valero Energy Corp's refineries in St. Charles and Meraux and PBF Energy's refinery in Chalmette.

As informed previously, Shell said earlier this month it observed damage from Hurricane Ida to its transfer station West Delta-143 offshore facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. West Delta-143 serves as the transfer station for all production from its assets in the Mars corridor in the Mississippi Canyon area of the Gulf of Mexico to onshore crude terminals. Shell said then it was not yet safe to send personnel offshore to learn the full extent of the damage and estimate the effect on production.

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

RusKhimAlyans, Linde, and Renaissance Heavy Industries signed EPC contract to build a natural gas liquefaction plant

RusKhimAlyans, Linde, and Renaissance Heavy Industries signed EPC contract to build a natural gas liquefaction plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- RusKhimAlyans, Linde, and Renaissance Heavy Industries signed today in St. Petersburg an ЕРС contract to build a natural gas liquefaction plant within the Gas Processing Complex near Ust-Luga (GPC, part of the Complex for processing ethane-containing gas; the GPC operator is RusKhimAlyans, a joint venture of Gazprom and RusGazDobycha), said the company.

The document was signed in the presence of Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Wolfgang Reitzle, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Linde.

According to the ЕРС contract, the consortium of Linde and Renaissance Heavy Industries is going to provide for the design works and supplies of equipment and materials, as well as to perform the construction and installation of two production trains with a total capacity of 13 million tons of liquefied natural gas per year.

A technology patented in Russia will be used to produce this LNG. The patent holders for the technology are Gazprom and Linde.

RusKhimAlyans is implementing the project for the Gas Processing Complex (GPC) within the Complex for processing ethane-containing gas (CPECG) near the settlement of Ust-Luga.

The GPC of the CPECG is an integrated complex for natural gas processing and liquefaction. The complex will have the biggest capacity in Russia and one of the largest in the world in terms of gas processing (45 billion cubic meters per year), and will be the leader in northwestern Europe in terms of liquefied natural gas production (13 million tons of LNG per year). Approximately 18 billion cubic meters of processed gas will be going into Gazprom’s gas transmission system. Among the GPC’s most important marketable products will be ethane, a valuable raw material for the gas chemical industry.

The CPECG includes a gas chemical complex (the GCC of the CPECG; the project operator is Baltic Chemical Complex, a subsidiary of RusGazDobycha) technically affiliated with the GPC. The GCC will process ethane fraction and produce up to 3 million tons of polymers per year – the largest output by a single facility worldwide.

The feedstock for the GPC of the CPECG will come in the form of high ethane-content natural gas. Initially, this gas will be delivered to the enterprise from fields in the Nadym-Pur-Taz region of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, and later on it will also be produced at Tambeyskoye, the richest field in the Yamal Peninsula. The gas will be transmitted via gas trunklines specially allocated for ethane-containing gas.

At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2021, RusKhimAlyans, Linde, and Renaissance Heavy Industries entered into an EPC contract to carry out the design works, equipment supplies, construction, and commissioning of gas processing and off-site facilities at the GPC.

As per MRC, Gazprom and the industrial gases major Linde signed an agreement of intent for Ust-Liga gas processing complex cooperation. The document outlines the main terms and conditions of a prospective EPSS contract providing for engineering services, equipment supplies, and maintenance of gas processing and off-site facilities, Gazprom informed in its statement.

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