INEOS Aromatics increased capacity with modernisation of PTA facility in Indonesia

INEOS Aromatics has completed a USD70 million modernisation of its purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in Merak, Indonesia, that significantly reduces emissions and increases capacity, supporting the competitiveness and growth of the Indonesian polyester industry, said the company.

The installation of a larger oxidation reactor, reconfiguration of the reactor’s heat recovery system and revamp of the process air compressor train will both reduce CO2 emissions per ton by 15% and increase the site capacity by 15%, from 500,000 tonnes to 575,000 tonnes per annum.

PTA is used by the polyester industry to produce items for homes and businesses such as clothes, furniture, food & drink packaging and other industrial uses. The investment will also improve the reliability and competitiveness of the plant, increasing the availability of PTA for the Indonesian market and the use of local content in fabric produced in the country.

"The INEOS Aromatics facility in Merak has played an important role in the Indonesia polyester industry for some time. This new, multi-million dollar investment shows our commitment to its future growth," says Frank Yang, President Director, INEOS Aromatics Indonesia.

The plant modernisation was completed safely amidst the COVID-19 pandemic that affected the movement of people and materials during the process.

The Merak plant has been operating for nearly 25 years and is a major PTA supplier in Indonesia. It became part of INEOS, as part of its USD5 billion acquisition of the bp petrochemicals business in January 2021, extending both its portfolio and geographical reach.

As per MRC, INEOS Styrolution (Frankfurt, Germany) announced the start of ABS ((acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) production in Wingles, France, having completed the conversion of an existing polystyrene line to the production of ABS. This move makes Wingles the company’s third ABS production site in Europe together with Antwerp, Belgium and Cologne, Germany. The ABS production capacity in Wingles will be 50,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr), to help meet the increased demand for ABS in Europe in industries such as Construction, Compounding, Household and Automotive.

As MRC reported earlier, in August 2021, INEOS Styrolution joined the US Plastics Pact in their support for collaborative, solution-driven initiatives intended to drive significant system change in the design, use, and reuse of plastics. The US Plastic Pact unites cross-sector approaches, setting a national strategy, and creating scalable solutions to create a path forward toward a circular economy for plastics in the United States by 2025.

We remind that in April 2021, INEOS Styrolution, Recycling Technologies and Trinseo announced that they had reached a significant milestone in their plans to build commercial polystyrene (PS) recycling plants in Europe. Recycling Technologies has been selected as the technology partner.

INEOS Styrolution is the leading global styrenics supplier, with a focus on styrene monomer, polystyrene, ABS Standard and styrenic specialties. With world-class production facilities and more than 90 years of experience, INEOS Styrolution helps its customers succeed by offering solutions, designed to give them a competitive edge in their markets. At the same time, these innovative and sustainable best-in-class solutions help make the circular economy for styrenics a reality. The company provides styrenic applications for many everyday products across a broad range of industries, including automotive, electronics, household, construction, healthcare, packaging and toys/sports/leisure. In 2020, sales were at 4 billion euros. INEOS Styrolution employs approximately 3,600 people and operates 20 production sites in ten countries.
MRC

Honeywell and Oriental Energy have jointly announced that a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production facility with an output capacity of 1 MMtpy will be built in Maoming, Guangdong Province in China, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The new facility will help meet a growing SAF demand, facilitate GHG emission reduction in aviation fuel production through the deployment of innovative technologies and support China’s goals to reduce CO2 emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

The Oriental Energy SAF project, which is expected to be built in two phases, involves two production units that will process used cooking oils and animal fats as feedstocks. When completed, it is expected to be among the world’s largest SAF production facilities using used cooking oils and animal fats as feedstocks. Using such feedstocks helps reduce lifecycle GHG emissions by approximately 80% compared with traditional fuels - or by 2.4 MMtpy for the completed project.

“SAF currently represents an important and feasible solution to reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions, and the Oriental Energy SAF project is a significant step toward emission reduction in the aviation industry,” said Wang Mingxiang, Chairman of Oriental Energy. “We are very pleased to open a new chapter of collaboration with Honeywell. By taking advantage of our existing petrochemical industry chain, we will build a new petrochemical production base to enable the mass production of SAF in China, contributing to greenhouse gas emission reduction in the aviation sector and China’s carbon neutral goals.”

As MRC wrote before, in December 2021, W. R. Grace & Co., the leading independent supplier of polyolefin catalyst technology, polypropylene (PP) process technology, announced the successful start-up of two 400 KTA UNIPOL PP process technology lines at Oriental Energy in Ningbo, China.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 1,494.280 tonnes, up by 21% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whreas.shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

Oriental Energy operates two subsidiaries, Oriental Energy-Ningbo and Oriental Energy-Zhangjiagang, each of which, in turn, operates a plant with a capacity of 400 ktpa PP and a propane dehydrogenation unit with a capacity of 600 ktpa. These companies were renamed in April 2017 as follows: Ningbo Fuji Petrochemical was renamed Oriental Energy-Ningbo and Zhangjiagang Yangzijiang Petrochemical was renamed Oriental Energy-Zhangjiagang.
MRC

Canadian midstream energy company Pembina Pipeline and private equity firm KKR have agreed to form a joint venture (Newco) that will combine their western Canadian natural gas processing assets, said Reuters.

Pembina will contribute to Newco its field-based gas processing assets, which include the Cutbank Complex, the Saturn Complex, the Resthaven Facility, the Duvernay Complex and the Saskatchewan Ethane Extraction Plant, as well as its 45% interest in Veresen Midstream.

Not included: Pembina's Empress, Younger and Burstall assets will be excluded from the transaction and Pembina will retain its current ownership position. Also, Pembina and KKR intend to dispose of Newco’s non-operated interest in the Key Access Pipeline System (KAPS) natural gas liquids (NGL) and condensate pipeline project in Alberta, following closing of the Newco deal.

Newco will be owned 60% by Pembina and 40% by KKR's global infrastructure funds. Pembina will serve as the operator and manager of Newco. Newco's permanent name is expected to be announced prior to closing.

As the energy sector has evolved, the opportunities available from bespoke partnerships between public and private infrastructure owners have become more compelling, particularly in the natural gas processing business, KKR said. In a separate statement, US-based Energy Transfer said that the sale of its stake in ETC would allow it to divest “high-quality Canadian assets at an attractive valuation to further deleverage its balance sheet and redeploy capital within its US footprint."

As per MRC, Pembina Pipeline expects to decide by the end of March on whether to proceed with a planned expansion of its Prince Rupert propane export terminal in British Columbia province. The terminal, with a capacity of 25,000 bbl/day, was commissioned early last year and began loading propane onto vessels in April. It exports propane of petrochemical quality.

As per MRC, Pembina Pipeline and Inter Pipeline (IPL) are mulling the prospects of dehydrogenation/polypropylene (PDH/PP) production in Alberta province. On May 31, 2021, Pembina and Inter Pipeline entered into an agreement (the "Strategic Combination") to create one of the largest and best positioned energy infrastructure companies in Canada. Together the companies' diversified and integrated asset base can support and grow an extensive value chain for natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil, from wellhead to end user, that far exceeds anything either company can do separately.

Pembina Pipeline has been a gas supplier to the North American power system for over 60 years. Pembina owns and operates pipelines that transport a variety of hydrocarbon fluids, including conventional and synthetic crude oil and others, produced in Western Canada and North Dakota.
MRC

Evonik has started producing renewable isophorone-based products from renewable acetone, said the company.

The new range of products will have lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than conventionally made material, enabling more sustainable production of solvents, composites and coatings. The isophorone, isophorone diamine and isophorone diisocyanate materials have the same properties as the same products made from fossil fuels.

The potential CO2 reductions of the material are evaluated on a mass balance approach - an accounting principle matching inputs with outputs from the production process. The processes will be audited to be compliant with the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) and RECCert standards to verify the use of renewable resources across all stages of production.

The products will be used in the manufacturing of paints, lacquers and binders for modern coating systems, and will be suitable for high-performance composite materials like rotor blades for wind turbines, automotive interiors or the latest chemical synthesis technologies.

As MRC reported before, Evonik is investing a three-digit million-euro sum in the construction of a new production plant for bio-based and fully biodegradable rhamnolipids. The decision to build the plant follows a breakthrough in Evonik's research and development. Rhamnolipids are biosurfactants and serve as active ingredients in shower gels and detergents. Demand for environ-mentally friendly surfactants is growing rapidly worldwide.

We remind that in February, 2020, Dow and Evonik entered into an exclusive technology partnership. Together, they plan to bring a unique method for directly synthesizing propylene glycol (PG) from propylene and hydrogen peroxide to market maturity.

Evonik is one of the world leaders in specialty chemicals. The company is active in more than 100 countries around the world and generated sales of EUR13.1 bn and an operating profit (adjusted EBITDA) of EUR2.15 bn in 2019. Evonik goes far beyond chemistry to create innovative, profitable and sustainable solutions for customers.

MRC

Covestro's fourth-quarter net income fell by 3.2% but the full year 2021 income surged manifold over the previous year to EUR1.62bn on the back of strong global demand for its products, said the company.

"The group benefited from strong global demand and buoyant earnings in the year as a whole. Core volumes sold increased by 10% year on year, mainly due to additional volumes from the Resins & Functional Materials (RFM) business acquired from DSM," it said in a statement.

Covestro anticipates EBITDA for the first quarter of 2022 to be between EUR750m and EUR850m while for the full year 2022 the company expects an EBITDA value between EUR2.5bn and EUR3.0bn.

As MRC informed before, in April 2021, DSM completed the sale of the resins & functional materials businesses to Covestro for EUR1.6 bn (USD1.9 bn), including EUR1.4 bn in cash.

We remind that Covestro closed the sale of its European polycarbonates (PC) sheets business to the Munich-based Serafin Group effective January 2, 2020. This includes key management and sales functions throughout Europe as well as production sites in Belgium and Italy.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PC granules (excluding imports and exports to/from Belarus) decreased in the first eleven months of 2021 by 11% year on year due to a major fall of imports and higher exports. Thus, overall estimated consumption in Russia totalled 74,300 tonnes in January-November 2021 versus 83,600 tonnes a year earlier.

Covestro (formerly Bayer MaterialScience) is an independent subgroup within Bayer. It was created as part of the restructuring of Bayer AG from the former business group Bayer Polymers, with certain of its activities being spun off to Lanxess AG. Covestro manufactures and develops materials such as coatings, adhesives and sealants, polycarbonates (CDs, DVDs), polyurethanes (automotive seating, insulation for refrigerating appliances) etc. With 2020 sales of EUR 10.7 billion, Covestro has 33 production sites worldwide and employs approximately 16,500 people (calculated as full-time equivalents).

MRC