Gas leak at chemical firm Ineos contained at Grangemouth

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A gas leak inside petrochemicals firm Ineos's Grangemouth site in Scotland was successfully contained on Tuesday after emergency services rushed to the scene, reported Reuters with reference to the police's statement.

The incident forced the evacuation of non-essential staff and the closure of local roads. There were no reports of any injuries.

"The incident was caused by a leak on a pipe carrying ethylene gas which has been identified and is being isolated," Ineos said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

Earlier, the company said it had detected the leak on a pipeline inside its Kinneil Gas manufacturing plant at noon, prompting it to close a number of access gates and allow only essential personnel to enter the south side of the site.

Police said in a statement the incident had now been "contained on site", adding: "Officers would advise members of the public to go about their normal business."

Operations at the oil refinery were not impacted by the incident, Ineos said.

Scotland's Fire and Rescue Service sent eight fire engines to the scene.

The Grangemouth site covers about 1,700 acres and employs more than 1,300 people in an oil refinery and petrochemical plant by the estuary of the River Forth in central Scotland.

As MRC informed before, at Grangemouth, Ineos operates a 1 million mt/year Kinneil Gas (KG) gas cracker using mainly ethane and propane to feed its 330,000 mt/year linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant and 235,000 mt/year PP plant.

Ineos Group Limited is a privately owned multinational chemicals company consisting of 15 standalone business units, headquartered in Rolle, Switzerland and with its registered office in Lyndhurst, United Kingdom. It is the fourth largest chemicals company in the world measured by revenues (after BASF, Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell) and the largest privately owned company in the United Kingdom.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- National oil firm Saudi Aramco plans to cut its stake in Sadara Chemical Co, a joint venture with US company Dow Chemical, via an initial public offer of shares, Sadara chief executive Ziad al-Labban said on Wednesday, reported Reuters.

"Aramco has a stake of 65% in Sadara - they want to become equal with Dow, which has a 35% stake. The 30% I believe will be IPOed by Saudi Aramco," Labban told reporters on the sidelines of a petrochemical industry conference.

He did not give a timeline or other details. Executives first raised the possibility of an IPO for Sadara years ago; a source familiar with the matter told Reuters this year that it would occur after the planned IPO of Aramco itself, which is due to take place in 2018.

As MRC informed before, in June 2016, Saudi Arabian Oil Co. and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (Sabic) became one step closer to building their first plant to process crude directly into chemicals, cutting out a link in the production chain from hydrocarbons to the finished products that go into plastics and other consumer goods. The state-owned companies signed an agreement to study such a project to be located in Saudi Arabia. A joint venture is possible if the companies decide to move ahead after the study is completed by early 2017, they said. Oil companies normally refine crude into transportation fuels including gasoline and diesel and leave byproducts such as naphtha to be processed separately into chemicals.

Saudi Aramco is an integrated oil and chemicals company, a global leader in hydrocarbon production, refining processes and distribution, as well as one of the largest global oil exporters. It manages proven reserves of crude oil and condensate estimated at 261.1bn barrels, and produces 9.54 million bbl daily. Headquartered in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the company employs over 61,000 staff in 77 countries.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Phillips 66 expects its refineries to run in the mid-90% range of their combined capacity in the second quarter, according to a document prepared for a Friday morning conference call with Wall Street analysts to discuss first quarter earnings, said Reuters.

Phillips 66 is the sole owner of nine US refineries with a combined crude oil throughput capacity of 1.6 MMbpd and co-owns two other US refineries with a combined capacity of 336 Mbpd. Phillips 66's refineries ran at 84% of capacity in the first quarter, primarily due to overhauls at refineries in California, Illinois, Louisiana and New Jersey.

The company expects members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to agree to extend crude oil production cuts at the group's May 25 meeting, Chairman and Chief Executive Greg Garland said in a Friday morning conference call. "I think our base case assumes that there's extension in May in terms of OPEC," Garland said.

Looking to the long-term, Garland said refiners like Phillips 66 can expect growth in mid-stream operations like pipelines and terminals along with petrochemical production.

"Refining is a good business," he said. "It's just long term, we don't see it growing."

The company thinks demand for motor fuels will decline in the United States over the next few years due to changes in automobile efficiency, Garland said. Refiners will likely focus on expanding exports to balance declines in US demand.

"To invest in refining to add capacity still doesn't make sense to us," he said. "I think to invest to reduce your cost structure, gain access advantage to crudes and some yield, those are all good investments that we should be making."

Complying with federal renewable fuel requirements continues to drag on margins, Chief Financial Officer Kevin Mitchell said during the call, even though the cost for Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) have fallen this year.

"RINs are still a reduction to the realized margin. It's just less of a reduction with RIN prices coming down over the period," Mitchell said. The company has been able to find replacement supply for a drop in Canadian crude exports.

"I think from our viewpoint operationally it's been a minimal impact," Garland said.

As MRC informed earlier, Phillips 66 expects a permit will be granted to build an oil pipeline under the Missouri River near Native American land in North Dakota.

Phillips 66 is an American multinational energy company headquartered in Westchase, Houston, Texas. It debuted as an independent energy company when ConocoPhillips spun off its downstream assets and midstream assets. Phillips 66 began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on May 1, 2012, under the ticker PSX. The company is engaged in producing natural gas liquids (NGL) and petrochemicals.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mexico's Alpek has completed adding 5,000 mt of propylene storage to its Altamira port terminal, as per a company spokesman, reported Plastemart.

"The mechanical completion is finished and operations should ramp up in the month of May," spokesman Hernan Lozano said. Each of the two spheres has a capacity of 2,500 mt. "The purpose of the project is to make the domestic propylene logistics chain more efficient, as well as to have greater flexibility to import raw material," Lozano said.

Indelpro imports monomer on spot and contractual basis and converts it into polypropylene. The completion of the project comes amid the expected startup of Enterprise Products Partners' propane dehydrogenation unit in Mont Belvieu, Texas. Enterprise said the 750,000 mt/year PDH unit is on track to start in Q3 and could double exports year on year.

As MRC wrote earlier, Alpek, a leading petrochemical company, is all set to buy polyethylene terephthalate (PET) producer Petroquimica Suape (PQS) for USD385 million. Currently owned by Brazil's Petrobras, PQS owns a 700,000 mt/year PTA plant as well as a 450,000 mt/year PET plant in Ipojuca, Pernambuco, Brazil. After the acquisition, Alpek will own all these assets as well as Citepe - a polyester unit. Alpek already owns Mexico’s polypropylene producer Indelpro and DAK Americas, which produces PET in the US, Mexico, Canada and Argentina. The deal is awaiting corporate approvals as well as approvals by the appropriate governmental authorities.

Alpek is the petrochemicals unit of Mexican conglomerate Alfa.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Iran's Oil Minister said OPEC and non-OPEC countries had given positive signals for an extension of output cuts, which Tehran would also back, said Reuters.

OPEC meets in May to discuss oil supply policy. Oil prices fell last week though they closed higher on Friday on growing hope that OPEC might agree to extend production cuts long enough to reduce a global crude glut.

"During these last days we received a positive signal from OPEC members and non-OPEC contributors in this agreement for cutting the production for extending this agreement for the second half of 2017," minister Bijan Zanganeh told reporters.

Zanganeh blamed the United States for lack of foreign investment in Iran's energy sector, citing political pressure on international oil companies. "They (US) cannot stop us, anyone cannot stop our activities for developing oil and gas but ... they can reduce the acceleration of our activities," he said.

Under a deal reached in 2015, Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for lifting of most international sanctions imposed on the country.

But many foreign investors have continued to be put off by obstacles to doing business in Iran, including lingering unilateral US sanctions.
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