Ground breaking ceremony at Chevron Phillips Cedar Bayou plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP (Chevron Phillips Chemical) held a groundbreaking ceremony for its U.S. Gulf Coast (USGC) Petrochemicals Project at the Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown, Texas, said Reuters.

The groundbreaking ceremony signifies the start of construction for the USGC project sparked by shale resource development. The USGC project includes a 1.5 mln metric tpa (3.3 bln lbs/year) ethane cracker to be built at the Cedar Bayou facility in Baytown, and two 500,000 mln metric tpa (1.1 bln lbs/year) capacity polyethylene facilities to be built in Old Ocean, Texas.

The project will support 400 long-term direct jobs and 10,000 engineering and construction jobs. The estimated completion date for the USGC Petrochemicals Project is in 2017. The capacity expansion is targeting a 20% minimum increase in a phased approach.

Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC, one of the world’s top producers of olefins and polyolefins and a leading supplier of aromatics, alpha olefins, styrenics, specialty chemicals, plastic piping and polymer resins. Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC is equally owned by Chevron U.S.A. Inc., an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Chevron Corporation, and by wholly-owned subsidiaries of Phillips 66, and is headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petroliam Nasional Bhd., Malaysia’s state oil and gas company, will proceed with a plan to invest in a USD27 billion refining and petrochemicals project in the southern Johor state bordering Singapore, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The proposed Pengerang Integrated Complex will comprise of a refinery and petrochemical development and other associated facilities, Petronas said after its board approved the investment decision. The project is poised for its refinery startup by early 2019, it said.

The latest decision may help a push by Malaysia to turn the fishing town of Pengerang into an oil and gas hub. It comes after Taiwan’s Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co. in December ended a plan to build a USD12 billion petrochemicals project in the same area.

"Petronas undertook a rigorous review of the project, including independent third-party assessments to ensure it meets our criteria for long-term profitable and sustainable growth," CEO Shamsul Azhar Abbas said. "This decision is in line with our commitment to capital discipline."

The refinery and petrochemical integrated development is estimated to cost about USD16 billion, Petronas said. Associated facilities including raw-water supply and power co-generation plants, and a liquefied natural gas regasification terminal, will involve an investment of about USD11 billion, it said.

The Petronas project, announced by Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2011 and initially scheduled for 2016 completion, has encountered problems acquiring land and relocating residents. The Malaysian company was reviewing the costs and potential returns of the development as Kuokuang, a unit of Taiwanese state-run refiner CPC Corp., dropped plans for its project.

Kuokuang said in December its plan to build a refinery, naphtha cracker and other plants in Pengerang was no longer competitive as a shale gas boom drove down the production cost of petrochemicals in the US and expansion in China had led to an oversupply.

Petronas may not proceed with the investment in Pengerang if the costs and returns prove unfavorable, Shamsul said Aug. 26.

BASF also ended plans last year to jointly develop specialty chemicals manufacturing facilities with Petronas in the same area after both companies disagreed on terms. Petronas later signed a letter of intent with Germany’s Evonik Industries for a similar partnership.

As MRC informed previously, in July 2013, Petronas signed an agreement with Eni-controlled Versalis to jointly own, develop, construct and operate elastomer plants within Petronas' proposed refinery and petrochemical integrated development (RAPID) complex in Pengerang, Johor. The agreement signed with Versalis is the fourth-such arrangement secured by Petronas for RAPID. Prior to this, Petronas inked similar agreements with Germany-based BASF, ITOCHU Corp. of Japan and Thailand's PTT for various high value-added downstream chemicals.

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) -- Sinopec Sabic Tianjin is in plans to shut a polypropylene (PP) plant for maintenance turnaround, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the plant is likely to be shut on May 7, 2014. It is planned to remain off-stream for around one month.

Located in Tianjin city, China, the plant has a production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote previously, in November 2013, top Asian refiner Sinopec Corp won initial approval from China's top economic planner for a plan to build a USD10-billion refinery and petrochemical complex in Shanghai. China, the world's largest net importer of oil, is likely to add 3 million barrels per day, or a quarter of new refining capacity, between 2013 and 2015 to fuel economic growth, industry officials and Chinese media estimate.

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) -- Kem One, Europe’s third-largest producer of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), will maintain a strict price policy in April in order to recover the margins, deteriorated by the weakness of the market for caustic soda, reported the company in its press release.

No concession will be made with respect to the movement of the "feedstock", and price increases will be applied.

As MRC informed previously, Kem One increased its February prices of suspension PVC (SPVC) grades and mass PVC (MPVC) grades, given the weakness of the market for caustic soda and margin erosion. The increase for the products stated above was EUR25/tonne. In January 2014, Kem One already raised PVC prices by EUR50/tonne.

Kem One, a fully integrated vinyl production company, was established mid-2012 following the acquisition of Arkema's vinyl products division by the Klesch Group. The company employs 2,600 people at 22 manufacturing sites, primarily in Europe but also in Asia and North America. Europe’s third-largest producer of PVC with revenues in excess of one billion euros, KEM ONE continues to grow and build on its numerous strengths with a view to becoming market leader for integrated vinyl solutions.
MRC