MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil Synthetics (ExxonMobil) announced it is responding to customer needs and has confirmed plant feasibility to significantly increasing high viscosity metallocene polyalphaolefin (High Viscosity mPAO) synthetic base stock production, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
The demonstration of higher production capability is a result of a successful plant trial and planned subsequent expansion of the Baytown manufacturing facility in Texas, USA that has been serving customers for 100 years. This resulted in a proven run rate of approximately 20% over design basis and would move the capacity to 60 kilo-tons of High Viscosity mPAO production per year for the plant.
“Our customers demand a reliable supply of high quality synthetic base stocks to enable them to innovate confidently. Investing in our production facilities and responding to market drivers allows us to stay at the forefront of the base stocks industry. As adoption of the metallocene synthetic base stock platform increases across industrial, automotive and wind turbine markets, we’ve invested over half a billion dollars in plant capacity improvements in the last decade. The market is continuously evolving and the investments made position us to meet our customer’s long-term requirements as they grow their business, as well as support the increasing societal need for renewable energy. Our synthetic base stocks help formulators create lubricants that are more energy efficient, work under more severe operating conditions, offer extended drain intervals and provide advanced lubricant performance” said Kerrie-Anne Lanigan, Vice President of ExxonMobil Synthetics.
The synthetic lubricant market is forecasted to grow by over 25%* between 2020 and 2025, with a further upside in the industrial lubricant space. The ExxonMobil Synthetics Business Unit has four Group IV and V base stock manufacturing facilities supplying over 375KT across all grades to ensure global supply leadership capabilities. This has enabled ExxonMobil Synthetics to build a strong reputation for delivering products on time and on spec.
To help address the need for increased collection and sorting of plastic waste, as MRC informed before, in February 2021, ExxonMobil formed a joint venture with Agilyx Corporation, Cyclyx International LLC, focused on developing innovative solutions for aggregating and pre-processing large volumes of plastic waste that can be converted into feedstocks for valuable products. Cyclyx will help supply ExxonMobil’s advanced recycling projects, and will aim to do the same for other customers.
ExxonMobil is a founding member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which is focused on accelerating investment in safe, scalable and economically viable solutions to help address the challenge of plastic waste in the environment through a portfolio of projects that has grown to more than 30 ongoing projects across several countries.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
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