BP faces claims over Texas City refinery pollutants

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A Texas jury began hearing arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit in which neighbors of a former BP refinery allege the oil giant's release of toxic gases exposed residents to potential health dangers, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The suit is the latest BP has faced over the refinery it used to own in Texas City, where a 2005 explosion killed 15 workers, injured scores of others and cost the oil company USD2.1 billion in legal settlements.

The air emissions lawsuit, which is unrelated to the 2005 blast, could potentially put BP on the hook for an additional USD10 billion in punitive damages, according to court documents. BP has said in regulatory filings that the refinery emitted toxic gases, but that the releases weren't large enough to sicken neighbors.

The refinery, among the largest in the US, has been a mixed blessing for the roughly 45,000 people living in Texas City, an industrial area along the Gulf of Mexico about 45 minutes southeast of Houston. The 475,000 bpd plant employs thousands of people but has been prone to accidents, including an April 2011 power outage that caused a refinery fire and forced residents to shelter in place.

BP sold the refinery and affiliated assets to Marathon Petroleum in February 2013, in a deal valued at USD2.4 billion.

BP, which has said it invested heavily to improve operations, has paid state and federal regulators tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements stemming from previous environmental and safety issues at the refinery. In November 2011, BP agreed to pay the Texas government USD50 million in a settlement related to pollution emissions at the plant after the 2005 explosion.

In the latest case, residents allege that the refinery emitted 500,000 pounds of carbon monoxide, benzene and other air pollutants in April and May of 2010, lowering their property values and putting their health in danger.

Mr. Buzbee has tussled unsuccessfully with BP before over emissions from the Texas City refinery. In 2009, a jury ordered BP to pay USD100 million to plaintiffs Mr. Buzbee represented who claimed to have been subjected to health risks by breathing toxic air from the plant. A judge later overturned the decision, saying the plaintiffs didn't prove BP was grossly negligent.

BP has previously said in information filings with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that a hydrogen compressor damaged by fire started emitting toxic materials in April 2010. BP continued operating the damaged equipment while it made repairs, sending emissions into the air for the next 40 days.

But BP said health problems cited by plaintiffs could be attributed to any number of factors outside the refinery.

As MRC wrote previously, The US Justice Department and Gulf Coast states consider offering BP a USD16 billion deal to settle civil claims related to the Deepwater Horizon incident. The settlement offer would cover potential fines owed by BP under the Clean Water Act and payments under another process known as the Natural Resources Damage Assessment, or NRDA, the people said. The fines stem from the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill that ensued from the Deepwater Horizon well blowout in April 2010.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Repsol is considering taking over a portion of a heavy oil project in Venezuela that was dropped by Petronas, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Mr. Ramirez said a committee of the joint venture at the Carabobo development in Venezuela's Orinoco heavy oil belt will soon determine how to allocate the 11% stake previously held by Petronas. He added the portion also could be absorbed by state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA, which owns 60% of the project.

Repsol is already a stakeholder in the same Carabobo bloc along with Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and two other Indian companies.

An official for an oil company doing business in Venezuela said finding a partner to fill in for Petronas wouldn't be a challenge.

"It's not going to be hard to find somebody who is interested," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivities surrounding the project. The official pointed at Indian oil partners as another possible suitor.

Petrobras said in a statement it was pulling out of the joint venture it entered in May 2010. Petronas said it had notified Venezuelan officials of the decision on August 27.

A person familiar with the Petronas-PdVSA negotiations said the frequent breakdown in communications with the Venezuelan government, along with regulatory uncertainty in the South American country contributed to the withdrawal.

As MRC informed previously, in early 2013, Shell closed the purchase of a raft of LNG assets from Spain's Repsol with an announcement imminent. The Anglo-Dutch supermajor was finally set to snap up the LNG assets of Repsol in Peru and Trinidad & Tobago. Repsol was set to land around EUR1.5 billion (USD1.96 billion) in cash from the deal, which also indicates Repsol LNG has gross debts of around EUR1 billion.

Repsol S.A. is an integrated Spanish oil and gas company with operations in 28 countries. The bulk of its assets are located in Spain. It is now the 15th largest petroleum refining company according to the Fortune Global 500 list.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Weaker demand and higher prices rsulted in a decline in Ukraine's imports of polypropylene (PP) in August by 17% compared to July levels, according to MRC DataScope.

August PP imports to Ukraine declined to 10,200 tonnes against 12,400 tonnes in July. The decline in imports was due to the weaker domestic demand and significant price increase in Europe.

External supplies of homopolymer PP last month declined to 8,400 tonnes compared to 9,100 tonnes in July. As MRC analysts expected, the supply of Russian homopolymer PP has been cut almost in half compared with the July figure due to the shortage in the domestic market and reduced export quotas by some Russian producers. The supply of European homopolymer PP was also limited.

Imports od copolymers of propylene in August fell to 1,800 tonnes compared to 3,300 tonnes in July. Strong prices of copolymers of propylene in Europe (prices rose on average by EUR50/tonne) forced many Ukrainian companies limit significantly the purchases in the last month.

Ukraine's PP imports in the eight months of the year totalled about 89,400 tonnes, up by 30% year on year.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kiefel, SML, Braskem and Milliken will combine their machine and material innovations to bring the powerful material substitution possibilities of Clear Polypropylene (PP) to life, said Azom.

Highly transparent, deep-draw cups produced live by Kiefel on its productivity-boosting systems will let visitors experience first-hand the exceptional high clarity and performance that can be achieved with Braskem’s Inspire 224 PP containing Milliken’s innovative clarifying agent, Millad NX 8000.

Clear PP is revolutionizing the range of applications able to take advantage of the lightweight and efficiency benefits of polypropylene. Through their partnership at K 2013, the four companies will demonstrate the performance potential and how state-of-the-art machinery can maximize the efficiency of using PP, highlighting the material’s viability as an alternative to less sustainable materials.

Extrusion equipment specialists SML will utilize this ease of processability to produce a film sheet in-house for Kiefel on one of its state-of-the-art lines. The SML High Performance extrusion line incorporates High Speed Extrusion (HSE) technology and typically produces more than 1000kg/h of high quality sheet. This ensures that the energy consumption per kg sheet is very low.

Braskem is the largest producer of thermoplastic resins in the Americas. With 36 industrial plants in Brazil, the United States and Germany, the company produces over 35 billion pounds of thermoplastic resins and other petrochemicals per year. Braskem is the world’s leading biopolymers producer with its 440 million pound green polyethylene plant that produces polyethylene from sugarcane-based ethanol.

As MRC wrote before, Braskem announced the expansion of its portfolio of renewable products with the launch of its new line of green low-density polyethylene (LDPE), with this new product family complementing itпїЅs already well known Green Plastics

Kiefel GmbH is a member of the Siegsdorf-based Bruckner Group, a world-leading supplier of machines and plant systems for use in the plastics processing industry. KIEFEL is a world leader in the design and manufacture of machines used to process plastic film materials.

SML is internationally recognized as reliable turn-key supplier of custom-made coex-castfilm-lines, coex-calendering-lines, extrusion-coating-lines and multifilament-spinning-lines. With its strong engineering force, SML has established itself as worldwide technology and market leader in various fields.

Milliken is an innovation company that has been exploring, discovering, and creating ways to enhance people’s lives since 1865. The company creates coatings, specialty chemicals, and advanced additive and colorant technologies that transform the way we experience products from automotive plastics to children's art supplies
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiwan's government may loosen restrictions on investment in petrochemical production in China, where new projects have already attracted some interest from Taiwanese companies, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Taiwan's Investment Commission, which regulates outbound investments and is under the Ministry of Economics Affairs, said Monday it has proposed to let the island's petrochemical producers build naphtha cracker plants and produce ethylene and propylene in China.

Final approval of projects will hinge on conditions concerning ownership and shipment priority, Emile Chang, executive secretary of the Investment Commission, told the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Chang said the projects will have to be at least 50% owned by Taiwanese companies, which will also pledge to ship the output back to Taiwan if there is a shortage at home.

Taiwan currently doesn't allow investment in naphtha cracking in China, likely as part of efforts to avoid capital outflows.

Still, the island's petrochemical industry has been seeking investment opportunities in China after government-linked Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co. failed in the past two years to find a suitable site in Taiwan or Malaysia to build a much-needed naphtha cracker.

Analysts have said that Taiwan's downstream petrochemical companies might face a shortage of feedstock. Taiwan is a net importer of ethylene; it produced 3.47 million metric tons of ethylene in 2012 and imported around 348,000 metric tons of the product.

The Investment Commission's proposal has been submitted to the cabinet and is pending approval, Mr. Chang said, declining to give a time frame on the process.

Formosa Plastics Group, among the most active Taiwanese petrochemical firms investing in China, has flagged an interest to build ethylene plants in the provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian. The company currently produces petrochemical products, such as ethylene glycol and polyvinyl chloride, in its Ningbo petrochemical complex in Zhejiang province.

As MRC wrote previously, about NTUSD100 bln (USD3.35 bln) will be invested in Taiwan's petrochemical industry in 2013, including NTUSD15 bln in high-value petrochemical sectors.
MRC