CVR Energy moves forward with renewable fuel plans at its Oklahoma refinery

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Carl Icahn's CVR Energy is moving forward with plans to produce renewable diesel at its Wynnewood, Oklahoma refinery in Spring of 2022 after halting the proposal earlier this yr due to high soybean oil prices, reported Reuters with reference to executives' statements on Tuesday.

However, plans to produce renewable fuels at its Coffeyville refinery in Kansas will depend on the expansion of low carbon fuel standard programs throughout America.

Various states such as New York and New Mexico are eying the adoption of low carbon fuel standards similar to California's landmark program. The program offers incentives for greener fuels by awarding tradable credits to producers that reduce the carbon intensity of their transportation fuels.

"We need a couple of those to happen to really have the Coffeyville conversion," said chief executive David Lamp on the company's third quarter earnings call on Tuesday.

CVR Energy is eying production of 50 MM gallons of renewable fuel at Coffeyville, potentially including 25 MM gallons of sustainable aviation fuel if regulatory conditions change. Until Wynnewood's pretreater unit is up and running the company plans to run refined deodorized and bleached soybean oil and treated corn oil.

CVR's refining peers Marathon Petroleum and Chevron Corp recently announced joint ventures that would allow them to own soybean oil crushers to secure feedstocks for their renewable projects.

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 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in January-September 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil has said it is on track to meet its 2025 emissions reduction targets by the end of this year - four years earlier than planned - and has vowed to ramp up investments to further cut emissions, according to Upstream.

The US supermajor said it is now working on more aggressive reduction plans, which will be accelerated from an increase in the company’s investment into its low-carbon initiatives.

ExxonMobil initially announced it would invest USD3 billion into its initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through 2025 but has now upped that to USD15 billion over the next six years.

Much of the spending is directed toward its Low Carbon Solutions business, which works to lower emissions in hard-to-decarbonise sectors like heavy industry, commercial transportation and power generation.

The first project announced by the low-carbon solutions business is a carbon capture and storage (CCS) hub at the Houston Ship Channel. By 2040, the hub plans to capture and store 100 million tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide from a variety of facilities in the area. Eleven companies have expressed interest in participating in the hub.

During a recent congressional inquiry that put oil and gas executives on the stand, ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods said the price on carbon required for the hub is USD100 per tonne but may differ project to project.

As MRC wrote before, last week, ExonMobil signed a memorandum of understanding with national oil company Pertamina to evaluate the potential for the large-scale deployment of low-carbon technologies in Indonesia. Under the MoU, the companies will identify potential subsurface CO2 storage locations and will examine the feasibility of transporting CO2 in Southeast Asia.

We remind that ExxonMobil plans to build its first, large-scale plastic waste advanced recycling facility in Baytown, Texas, and is expected to start operations by year-end 2022. By recycling plastic waste back into raw materials that can be used to make plastic and other valuable products, the technology could help address the challenge of plastic waste in the environment. A smaller, temporary facility, is already operational and producing commercial volumes of certified circular polymers that will be marketed by the end of this year to meet growing demand.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in January-September 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell, the world’s largest licensor of polyolefin technologies, announced Lianyungang Petrochemical Co., Ltd (a company of Zhejiang Satellite) has selected LyondellBasell’s Hostalen technology for a second 400 kiloton (kt) per yr high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The new facility will be built at Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, China. We are excited about this additional award from Lianyungang Petrochemical Co., Ltd which demonstrates the credibility LyondellBasell has in the polyethylene market,” said Jim Seward, Senior Vice President R&D, Technology and Sustainability at LyondellBasell. “Additionally, with this license, the global nameplate capacity of Hostalen ACP will exceed 10 million tons per year."

The Hostalen ACP technology is the process of choice for the production of high-performance multimodal HDPE products. "The selection of the Hostalen ACP technology was the best choice for us as we are very satisfied with the performance of our existing Hostalen ACP line,” said Mr. Lu Wei Wei, Vice President of Zhejiang Satellite. “The market appreciates the HDPE resins out of LyondellBasell’s low-pressure slurry process and the technology enables us to produce reliably and economically."

The Hostalen ACP process technology manufactures high performance, multi-modal HDPE resins with an industry-leading stiffness/toughness balance, impact resistance, high stress cracking resistance and process advantages used in pressure pipe, film, blow molding and caps & closure applications.

The Hostalen ACP plant will commence operations using Avant Z501 and Avant Z509-1 catalysts to produce a full range of multi-modal HDPE products. New licensees can take advantage of LyondellBasell’s in-house expertise of continuous production improvement, sustainable product development and catalyst knowhow, by optionally joining our Technical Service program.

As per MRC, Liaoning Bora Petrochemical, a joint venture between private refinery Liaoning Bora Enterprise and international petrochemical giant LyondellBasell (LBI), shut down HDPE production in Liaoning Province (Liaoning, China) on 26 October for preventive maintenance. This production with a capacity of 350,000 tonnesyear will be closed for maintenance for about one week.

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.

LyondellBasell is one of the world's largest polypropylene producers, a leading supplier of polyethylene and catalysts, and a developer of polyethylene and polypropylene technologies. The company manufactures products at 58 production sites in 18 countries around the world. In addition, LyondellBasell is the developer of the Spheripol process, which is the basis for polypropylene production at Omsk Poliom and Nizhnekamskneftekhim.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Spare production capacity has shrunk significantly due to underinvestment, the head of Saudi Aramco said Nov. 9, warning that the potential rebound in jet travel and continued power plant demand for liquid fuels could create a worryingly tight market in 2022, reported S&P Global.

"Unfortunately, there is not enough investment in the sector to increase supplies and maintain that spare capacity," Aramco President and CEO Amin Nasser said at the Nikkei Global Management Forum.

He estimated that global oil demand would surpass pre-pandemic levels of some 100 million b/d next year. Jet fuel demand remains about 3 million-4 million b/d below where it was before the pandemic, and a recovery in air travel would quickly consume the world's spare production capacity, he said.

The current high oil prices reflect the healthy economic recovery, as well as energy switching in the power sector from gas to liquid fuels, which could potentially add 1.5 million b/d of oil demand this winter, Nasser said.

Spare capacity can act as the market's buffer against unexpected disruptions to supply, such as hurricanes, political unrest and security incidents.

With many international oil companies seeking to downsize their oil portfolios and some producing countries struggling to revive upstream investment, Saudi Aramco stands to benefit and gain in market share, as it embarks on raising its crude production capacity from 12 million b/d to a world-leading 13 million b/d by 2027. The company is already the world's largest exporter of crude.

The slower pace of the energy transition in many developing countries means oil will remain a major fuel source for several decades, Nasser said.

"Between now until 2050, there are going to be an estimated 2 billion more energy users in the world and population growth would be led by developing countries, where energy transition will be much slower," Nasser said. "Hence, I expect oil and gas demand will be healthy for many decades to come."

Oil and gas would remain Saudi Aramco's key businesses for a long time, though efforts to reduce carbon footprint will be executed with its combination of strategies including carbon capture, gas to hydrogen, liquid to chemical and more, Nasser said. Saudi Aramco recently set a target of bringing its carbon emissions down to net zero from its operations by 2050.

As MRC informed before, in June 2020, Aramco finalized its USD69 billion acquisition of a 70% stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the Middle East's biggest petrochemical maker. SABIC reported more than a fivefold year-on-year increase in its Q3 net profit to USD1.49 billion thanks to higher average sales prices.

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 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in January-September 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.

Saudi Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a Saudi Arabian national oil and natural gas company based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco's value has been estimated at up to USD10 trillion in the Financial Times, making it the world"s most valuable company. Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 260 billion barrels, and largest daily oil production.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PTT Global Chemical's (PTTGC) net profit surged in the third quarter, supported by higher petrochemical sales prices and volumes, said the company.

PTTGC shows strong Q3 performance, supports 9 months, turns a profit of 41 billion baht, receives sales revenue. PTT Global Chemical Public Company Limited or PTTGC reported operating results for the 3rd quarter and the first 9 months of 2021 with net profits as follows.

As for the operating results in the 3rd quarter of 2021, the company had total sales revenue of 112,173 million baht, slightly increased from the quarter. 2/21 and an increase of 47% from Q3/2017. Likewise, the direction of petroleum product prices continued to rise in line with recovering crude oil prices and demand after many countries around the world began to pass.

However, the direction of the increase in crude oil prices has resulted in the Company The cost of raw materials has increased accordingly. especially for olefins and product groups. While Adjusted EBITDA in this quarter was at 14,080 million baht, a decrease of 8% from Q2/21, but an increase of 125% from Q3/2020.

"The pandemic situation seems to be quite well-controlled during the second half of 2021 caused by the speed-up in the progress on vaccination against COVID-19 in many countries, [which] led to the easing of lockdown restrictions, and stimulus packages to respond to the economic distress," the company said.

PTTGC "expects the global economy will gradually recover on the back of improving global consumption in 2022", it added.

As per MRC, PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) is in plans to undertake a brief shutdown for maintenance at its low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant in October. However, the exact dates of the turnaround were not given. Located at Map Ta Phut in Thailand, the LDPE plant has a production capacity of 345,000 mt/year.

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.

PTT Global Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a year.
MRC