Sinopec jointly certifies China first carbon-neutral oil cargo with Cosco Shipping and China Eastern Airlines

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's refining giant Sinopec Corp has jointly certified the country's first carbon-neutral crude oil cargo with shipping giant Cosco Shipping and China Eastern Airlines, reported Reuters.

The 30,000-tonne cargo was produced by Sinopec in Angola and shipped by Cosco Shipping to an east China-based Sinopec refinery for processing, Sinopec said.

To offset the carbon dioxide produced during the process from crude production to shipping to consumption by vehicles and airplanes, the three state firms bought Chinese Certified Emissions Reductions credits.

These credits that will go to investing in carbon-reducing projects such as tree planting, solar, wind and biomass power generation in China.

As MRC informed before, in August, 2021, Sinopec, the world's petrochemical major, launched the first phase of the Gulei refining complex in Zhangzhou city in China’s southeastern Fujian province. The refining complex, a 50:50 joint venture between Sinopec’s Fujian Petrochemical Company Ltd and Taiwan Xuteng Investment Company Ltd, invested 27.8 billion yuan (USD4.28 billion) in the first phase. That will result in an 800,000 tonnes per annum ethylene plant, a 600,000 tonnes per annum styrene unit and seven other downstream petrochemical units, Sinopec said.

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 1,396,960 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.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group's key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, has announced it will raise prices of all acetate tow product grades sold globally, as per the company's press release.

Thus, prices for the stated above products will rise by USD0.40/kg or EUR0.34/kg.

This price increase will be effective for orders shipped on or after October 18, 2021, or as contracts otherwise allow.

“Over the past 18 months, the entire industry has been confronted with a great number of challenges which structurally impact all producers. New regulatory and legislative restrictions have increased the complexity of manufacturing and portfolio requirements, leading to high utilization rates; logistics complexities including equipment and operator availability have added cost and lead-time uncertainties; and major production costs have risen sharply in response to sector demand, conversions and availability,” said Harald Bruggeman, Vice President Commercial, Acetate Tow, for Celanese. “In order to continue to provide the supply chain security that our acetate tow customers value, it is necessary to increase prices to overcome the impact of these structural changes. Celanese’s commitment to the acetate tow business ensures that we will continue to invest in the necessary assets, innovation and effective services that our valued customers rely upon.”

We remind that, as MRC reported earlier, Celanese Corporation has recently announced a force majeure (FM) in China for vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) shipments from its plant Nanjing, China. Celanese has temporarily shut down its acetic anhydride and VAM production in Nanjing to comply with recent requirements of government departments in order to achieve dual energy consumption targets in the Jiangsu Province in 2021. Thus, its VAM plan with the capacity of 300,000 mt/year was shut on 17 September, 2021, and its was expected to resume operations in late September.

According to MRC's DataScope report, June EVA imports to Russia fell by 18,32% year on year to 2,400 tonnes from 2,940 tonnes a year earlier, and overall imports of this grade of ethylene copolymer into the Russian Federation rose in January-June 2021 by 26,19% year on year to 22,020 tonnes (17,450 tonnes in the first seven months of 2020).

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,700 employees worldwide and had 2020 net sales of USD5.7 billion.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Israel’s largest refining and petrochemicals group, Oil Refineries plans to invest USD1.5 billion to become a cleaner energy company as it faces a government push to shut down more polluting factories, said Hydrocarbpnprocessing.

Israel has proposed shutting a major industrial zone in the coastal city of Haifa that health officials say has been hazardous for years and turning it into an eco-friendly commercial and residential hub. The country would in turn rely more heavily on imports. No final decision has been made.

Haifa-based Oil Refineries, which controls about two-thirds of the domestic fuel market, has opposed the move. But the company's new 10-year plan seems to bring it more in line with the government's vision.

In the plan presented to investors and analysts, Oil Refineries said it will focus on green hydrogen and alternative fuels for transportation, advanced polymers that are recycled and biodegradable, and biopolymers.

At least USD400 million will be invested in "new growth engines" and the rest is for "improving and adapting existing assets, assimilating advanced technologies to create and reducing the carbon footprint," it said. Haifa, Israel’s third largest city and a key seaport, juts off the coastline into the eastern Mediterranean and has grown over the past century into a crossroads for trade and industry.

The city, in turn, has high levels of air pollution and residents suffer from an “excess” of ailments linked to air pollution such as respiratory disease, malignancies and birth defects, according to a recent report by a government panel.

The panel found Haifa has become “stagnant” with low population growth and recommended phasing out within a decade a number of factories, including those belonging to Oil Refineries, that supply much of the country’s fuel products and petrochemicals used in materials like plastics and asphalt.

Also we remind that Israel’s Oil Refineries (ORL) swung to a loss in the fourth quarter, hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and said it had saw signs of recovery so far in 2021. ORL, Israel’s largest refining and petrochemicals group, said it lost USD68 million in the October-December period compared with zero profit a year earlier. Revenue dipped 39% to USD952 million. Its adjusted refining margin was USD4.3 a barrel in the fourth quarter, compared with USD5.2 a year earlier but above Reuters’ quoted Mediterranean Ural Cracking Margin of a negative USD0.1. ORL said that since the start of 2021, refining and polymer margins have risen sharply.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and PP.

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.
MRC

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

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Despite a rally in crude oil prices to three-year highs, there is scant evidence that demand in the top importing region of Asia is recovering. In fact, imports across the region dropped in September from the previous month, as high prices and economic disruption from the coronavirus pandemic continued to affect fuel demand, reported Reuters.

What there is early evidence of is that the major producers in the OPEC+ group of exporters are re-gaining market share lost due to their earlier output cuts, as they ramp up production and cut their official selling prices.

Asia's crude imports were 22.99 MM barrels per day (bpd) in September, according to Refinitiv Oil Research, down from 23.24 MMbpd in August and only just above July's 22.61 MMbpd.

China, the world's biggest crude importer, brought in 9.6 MMbpd last month, down from August's 10.53 MMbpd, according to Refinitiv's vessel-tracking and port data.

The softness in September imports are most likely a reflection of the high official selling prices (OSPs) for Middle Eastern grades that prevailed at the time when September-arriving cargoes would have been arranged. Also, a lack of available crude import and product export quotas may have constrained buying by China's independent refiners, who account for about one-third of its oil demand.

September arrivals would have been booked around June and July, and it's worth noting that since then the major Middle East exporters have moved to cut their OSPs, as well as boost output in line with an agreement by the OPEC+ group to add back 400,000 bpd every month from August to December.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest crude exporter, lowered its OSP for its benchmark Arab Light grade to Asian customers for November-loading cargoes by 40 cents a barrel (bbl), to a premium of USD1.30 a bbl to regional benchmark, the Oman/Dubai average. It was the second consecutive month the OSP was cut, and the premium for Arab Light has now dropped by USD2.60 a bbl in the past two months, having been set at USD3 a bbl for September-loading cargoes.

This reduction in the Saudi OSP, which has been largely matched by other key Middle Eastern exporters such as Kuwait and Iraq, was followed by news that Saudi Aramco, the state-controlled oil giant, will supply additional crude to at least three Asian buyers in November, while meeting full contracted volumes for four others. It seems that Aramco is keen to keep its oil competitive in Asia with a combination of lower prices and increased supply, working to take market share amid stagnant overall demand in the region.

We remind that As MRC wrote before, Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), said in June 2021 that he expects the company's deal with Saudi Aramco to materialise this year. RIL had in 2019 announced its interest to sell 20% stake in the company’s flagship chemicals and refining business to Saudi Aramco in a deal valued at USD15 billion. Last fiscal, RIL carved out its oil-to-chemicals business into a separate entity, to facilitate on boarding of strategic partners like Aramco.

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 1,396,960 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.
MRC