Nuberg has been awarded for contract for hydrogen peroxide plant in Uzbekistan

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sweden’s Nuberg EPC said on Monday that it has been awarded Uzbekistan Hydrogen Peroxide JV LLC's technology, engineering and construction contract for the 85 TDP (50% chemical grade H2O2) hydrogen peroxide plant project in Navoi region, Uzbekistan, said the company.

Nuberg EPC added that it would be “the single-point solution company responsible from concept to commissioning of the project". The project has an “ambitious schedule of 15 months”, including the supply of plant equipment, added Nuberg EPC.

The company is the technology licensor for the project. Nuberg EPC said it has so far delivered six turnkey H2O2 projects in Egypt, Ethiopia, UAE, Bangladesh and India.

As per MRC, Uzbekistan plans to launch in the fourth quarter of 2023 the production of polymers in a complex with MTO technology (from methanol to olefins). The complex with a capacity of 720,000 tonnes of polymers per year will be located in the center of the free economic zone (FEZ) in Karakul, Bukhara region. The USD2.5 billion project is expected to be commissioned in the fourth quarter of 2023 and will provide the Uzbek industry with olefinic hydrocarbons. The gas chemical complex is designed for processing local raw materials based on a licensed technological process for converting methanol into olefins, which has no analogues in the CIS region.

Polypropylene production will be carried out in cooperation with W. R. Grace & Co. (USA), a world leader in this field. The fact that Uzbekistan intends to build a new gas chemical complex (GCC) in the coming years, which will become the basis of the largest technological cluster in the region, became known in 2018.

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 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Malaysian state-owned energy giant Petroliam Nasional Berhad, or Petronas, has signed a MoU with Posco International Corporation and Posco Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd to jointly explore opportunities in CCS technologies as well as CO2 storage solutions in Malaysia, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Both parties will assess opportunities to unlock CCS potential and identify suitable technology within the scope of carbon capture, transportation of CO2 and storage for potential application.

Adif Zulkifli, Petronas' Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of Upstream said, "Given the multiple business adjacencies between Petronas and Posco, we are delighted to collaborate in unlocking the opportunities and potential of CCS. This is one of the many efforts to establish Malaysia as a leading CCS solutions hub in the region. Posco is the largest steel manufacturer in Korea and this collaboration will allow Petronas to leverage on Posco’s experience especially in carbon capture and transportation.”

Under the MoU, Petronas and Posco will collaborate and perform technical maturation activities to unlock CCS potential in Malaysia.

Petronas is taking deliberate steps to build a resilient and sustainable portfolio to support the transition towards lower carbon energy sources, including evaluating the application of technology towards lowering emissions across the value chain which will encompass carbon capture, transport and storage.

As MRC reported earlier, in January 2021, Petronas said it aims to become a net zero emitter of greenhouse gases by 2050 and also plans to increase its investments in renewable energy.

We remind that in June 2019, Petronas and Saudi Aramco started operations at their new 1.2-million-tonnes-per-year naphtha cracker. The cracker is part of the USD2.7 billion joint-venture oil refinery and petrochemical project known as RAPID - or Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development - located in Pengerang in the state of Johor, at the southern tip of peninsular Malaysia.

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 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.

Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Columbus-based chemical company Hexion Holdings has agreed to be acquired by the New York private equity firm American Securities, said the company.

American Securities will pay USD30 a share for Hexion. The company did not say how many shares were outstanding, or the total value of the deal. The deal follows Hexion's announcement that it will sell its epoxy business to Westlake Chemical Corp. for USD1.2 billion. At the time, Hexion said it planned to take the remainder of the company public. The American Securities deal ends that plan.

Hexion, which traces its roots to the former Borden Chemical Co., employs about 325 workers at its Downtown office at 180 East Broad St., its only Ohio operation. After spinning off its epoxy business, the company will operate 27 manufacturing facilities globally with approximately 1,300 employees. Hexion's sales last year were USD2.5 billion. Without the epoxy business, sales would have been approximately USD1.4 billion.

The sign on Hexion's headquarters, 180 East Broad St., in downtown Columbus. Not including the epoxy business, Hexion produces adhesives and materials for the engineered wood industry and other specialty materials.

Hexion “is well-aligned with global megatrends, including safety and sustainability requirements and regulations, population growth, and household formation," Wolff said in a news release. Both the sale of Hexion's epoxy business and the acquisition by American Securities are expected to take place in the first half of 2022.

As per MRC, Hexion Holdings Corporation has announced that as a result of its ongoing strategic review it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its epoxy-based Coatings and Composite businesses, which includes the epoxy speciality resins and base epoxy resins and intermediates product lines (together, the “Epoxy Business”) for approximately US1.2bn to Westlake Chemical Corporation.

As MRC reported before, earlier this year, Hexion Inc., a major American manufacturer of phenol and bisphenol A (BPA), has recently announced that in order to help address climate change, it has committed to reduce absolute carbon emissions by 20% by 2030.

Hexion Inc., formerly Momentive Specialty Chemicals Inc., is a chemical company based in Columbus, Ohio. It manufactures thermosetting resins and related technologies and specialty products. Hexion has two divisions: the epoxy, phenolic and coating resins division and the forest products division.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Perstorp, the world leader in the production of Trimethylolpropane (TMP), has ramped up the capacity to meet growing demand from the European market, said the company.

TMP is used to enhance the properties of numerous materials. Common applications include the use in saturated polyesters for coil coatings, polyurethanes for coatings and elastomers, acrylic acid esters for radiation curing, esters for synthetic lubricants, and for the surface treatment of pigments.

Filip Tauson, Global VP Polyols at Perstorp, commented: “The capacity expansion is fully in line with Perstorp’s ambition to further strengthen our position in the Polyols market. TMP is a key product in our Polyol portfolio, which is a core business within Perstorp. This product line have been instrumental in the development of Perstorp as an international company and we are happy to expand our position further to be able to serve a strong demand from the market."

The expansion development takes place in Vercelli, Italy. Perstorp’s own TMP production sites are located in China, Sweden, and the United States.

As per MRC, At the beginning of September, Perstorp shut down the phthalic anhydride production facility in the town of Nol (Nol, Sweden) for preventive maintenance. Perstorp shut down its 35 ktpa phthalic anhydride plant in Nola for the entire September due to scheduled maintenance. Repair of phthalic anhydride production is carried out simultaneously with repair of plasticizers production.

Earlier it was reported that Perstorp announced force majeure on 23 March for the supply of plasticizers from the plant in Stenungsund (Stenungsund, Sweden). A source in the company said that on 23 March, a force majeure was announced for the supply of dipropylheptyl phthalate (DPHP) with a capacity of 65 thousand tons per year due to a sudden stop of production at the supplier of raw materials on 19 March.

Perstorp Specialty Chemicals AB is a subsidiary of Perstorp Holding AB. The company was founded in 1881 and is based in Perstop, Sweden. Perstorp Specialty Chemicals AB manufactures chemical products. The company offers base and specialty polyols, formates, organic acids and formaldehyde products.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- OMV, the international, integrated oil, gas and chemicals company headquartered in Vienna, has taken the final investment decision to build a chemical recycling demo plant, based on its proprietary ReOil technology, with operations to start up in early 2023, as per the company's press release.

With this, OMV is taking the next step toward an industrial-scale plant planned for 2026.

The patented chemical recycling technology, developed by OMV, converts plastic waste into synthetic feedstock, under moderate pressure and normal refinery operating temperatures, which is then primarily used to produce again high-quality plastics.

OMV was among the first companies to develop a chemical recycling technology for used plastics more than a decade ago. A ReOil pilot plant has been operating in the Schwechat refinery since 2018, capable of processing 100 kg of used plastics into 100 liters of synthetic feedstock per hour. The pilot plant has been running for a total of 13,000 hours since its commissioning and thus enabled an improvement in the thermal cracking process and supported the further scale up of the ReOil technology.

The current investment covers the construction of a ReOil demo plant with a design capacity of 16,000 t/year at the OMV site in Schwechat, Austria. To finance this project, OMV entered into its first-ever green loan agreement which is in alignment with the green loan principles and based on a green and project-specific external due diligence appraisal, so-called Second Party Opinion, and a project-specific green financing framework.

The demo plant will turn plastic waste that is not fit to be mechanically recycled and would otherwise be sent to waste incineration into a valuable resource. The feedstock will be sourced in Austria, in close cooperation with local waste management companies, and will consist mainly of polyolefins. Examples of such plastic waste include food packaging, plastic cups, lids from takeaway coffee and confectionery packaging. Through the chemical recycling of plastics, OMV obtains a pure raw material which can again be used to produce virgin-quality base chemicals and plastics for all types of applications including packaging for the food industry and medical products, which must meet the highest quality and safety standards.

“The ReOil pilot plant has shown that we are on the right track with our in-house developed technology and with our efforts in this field. We are confident that chemical recycling can complement the available mechanical recycling technologies and that it represents a sustainable and profitable solution. With the decision to build a demo plant, we are now taking the next step toward circular economy and thus toward reducing our CO2 emissions”, said Alfred Stern, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of OMV Aktiengesellschaft.

The plant will be fully integrated within the petrochemical site at the Schwechat refinery, enabling OMV to guarantee the best use of resources, maximum efficiency, and the highest industrial safety standards, while creating around 50 new jobs. It represents an important step toward developing ReOil into a commercially viable, industrial-scale chemical recycling technology with a processing capacity of up to 200,000 t/year by 2026.

Like the pilot plant, the ReOil® demo plant will be fully ISCC PLUS certified. ISCC PLUS is a sustainability standard well-recognized by all stakeholders for recycled and bio-based materials, providing traceability along the supply chain and verifying that companies meet environmental and social standards.

Together with Borealis, OMV aims to become a leader in the circular economy of plastics.

As MRC informed earlier, OMV reported utilization of 83% at its European refineries in H1, 2021, down by 3% on the year yet "relatively resilient in light of the COVID-19 impact." It expects the utilization rates at its European refineries to remain at the 2020 level this year. Last year its refineries reported 86% utilization. The company's refineries in Europe ran at 85% utilization in Q2, up from 81% in the year-ago quarter.

We remind that OMV is investing EUR40 million (USD48 million) to expand and modernize a steam cracker and associated units at its refining and petrochemicals complex at Burghausen, Germany. The upgrade will increase the site’s ethylene and propylene production capacity by 50,000 metric tons/year. Following a planned turnaround of the refinery, the revamped cracker and petchem units are expected to start operations in the third quarter of 2022. Initial groundwork is already underway ahead of the upgrade.

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 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.

OMV produces and markets oil and gas, innovative energy and high-end petrochemical solutions – in a responsible way. With Group sales of EUR 23 bn and a workforce of around 20,000 employees in 2019, OMV Aktiengesellschaft is one of Austria’s largest listed industrial companies.
MRC