Ineos to challenge Scots fracking ban

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petrochemical firm Ineos has launched a legal challenge to the Scottish government's effective ban on fracking, reported BBC News.

Ministers announced the prohibition in October 2017, and it was subsequently endorsed by a vote of MSPs. Ineos Shale has applied for a judicial review of the decision, citing "serious concerns" about its legitimacy.

The Scottish government argues that it took a "careful and considered approach" while coming to the decision, with "detailed assessment of evidence".

It first introduced a moratorium on fracking in 2015, while undertaking a series of reports and a public consultation on whether to give permission in future.

Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse told MSPs last year that this moratorium, enforced via planning powers, would continue "indefinitely" after consultations showed "overwhelming" opposition to fracking from the public.

Labour and the Greens called for the ban to be put down in legislation, but Mr Wheelhouse insisted that the existing method was "sufficiently robust", and ultimately only Conservative MSPs voted against the move.

The development was welcomed by environmental organisations, but slammed by business groups, with Ineos among the most vocal in its criticism.

Ineos, which operates the industrial processing plant in Grangemouth and which holds fracking exploration licences across 700 square miles of the country, said the government's decision was "a major blow to Scottish science and the engineering industry".

Ineos Shale Operations Manager Tom Pickering said the group had "no option" but to raise a legal challenge alongside business partner Reach.

He said: "We have serious concerns about the legitimacy of the ban and have therefore applied to the court to ask that it review the competency of the decision to introduce it."

"Ineos, Reach and other operators have invested significantly in unconventional development over the years, against a supportive regulatory and planning backdrop.

"If Scotland wants to continue to be considered as a serious place to do business, then it cannot simply remove the policy support that attracted that investment in the first place without proper procedures being followed and without the offer of appropriate financial compensation."

Mr Wheelhouse defended the government's approach to fracking. He said: "We have taken a careful and considered approach to arriving at our preferred policy on unconventional oil and gas in Scotland.

"The Scottish government's position was endorsed by the Scottish Parliament in October, subject to completion of a strategic environmental assessment, and follows detailed assessment of the evidence and consultation with the public."

Ineos contends that the studies actually showed that shale gas could be produced safely in Scotland, and pointed to findings that the industry could support up to 3,100 jobs.

During the Holyrood debate of the ban, Labour MSP Neil Findlay voiced strong criticism of Ineos, saying the firm was "not well known for philanthropic behaviour" and had been "holding the country to ransom" by threatening to move jobs.

And Green MSP Mark Ruskell accused the company of "throwing their toys out of the pram" with "a predictable and desperate attempt" to challenge the ban.

He said: "Scotland doesn't want or need fracking and Ineos should accept they lost the democratic debate in the Scottish Parliament - the evidence was there to ban fracking and that is what Holyrood has done."

As MRC wrote before, in November 2017, Ineos Shale acquired Total’s entire 40% interest in PEDLs 139 & 140, and a 30% interest in PEDL 273, 305 & 316 (being 60% of Total’s current 50% holding).

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) – Koch-Glitsch and INVISTA Performance Technology (IPT), affiliates of Koch Industries, announced today a new partnership to offer innovative DTLprocess technology, allowing refineries to capture the value spread between replacement fuel costs and high-octane gasoline blend stock, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

DTL process technology converts light olefins, present in fluidized-bed catalytic cracking (FCC) off-gas, coker off-gas and other refinery streams, into high-octane gasoline blend stock, significantly increasing their value.

"Today’s market is looking for higher octane fuels, and this process allows refiners to deliver more of the high-value, high-octane fuels consumers seek,” said Christoph Ender, Koch-Glitsch vice-president of sales and marketing. “Through this partnership, we can provide our customers full-service project execution along with advanced technologies."

Commercially demonstrated in 12 refineries with another unit under construction, DTL technology uses proprietary catalysts that oligomerize and aromatize off-gas olefins, converting difficult to recover components such as ethylene, propylene and butylene into high-octane gasoline blend stock.

The technology delivers approximately 75 wt% C5+ liquid yields and 10 wt% LPG, which can be blended to the gasoline pool for increased gasoline production. This low CAPEX process has a small footprint and is integrated into the refinery downstream of the FCC gas plant using standard refinery equipment, such as fixed-bed reactors, absorption and separation columns and heterogenous catalysts. The unsaturated fuel gas leaving the FCC gas plant and other unsaturated gases blended as feed are diverted to the DTL process where it converts the stream into high-octane gasoline blend stock.

Additionally, DTL complements propylene producing FCC units — revamped or new — as it converts excess ethylene, butylene and any unrecovered propylene present in the fuel gas back to high-octane gasoline blend stock. This provides flexibility to refiners to take advantage of high propylene prices without worrying about excess fuel gas production.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Twenty-two Democratic U.S. senators from 12 states joined the chorus of local representatives seeking exemptions from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's newly proposed offshore drilling plan, after his surprise move on Tuesday to shield Florida, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Zinke surprised lawmakers, governors, and industry groups on Tuesday night by announcing that Florida would be removed from the Interior Department's proposal to open up over 90 percent of federal waters to oil and gas leasing. Zinke had met in Tallahasee, Florida's capital, with Republican Governor Rick Scott, who told the Interior chief that drilling puts his state's coastal tourism economy at risk. Scott is widely expected to challenge Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, who is up for re-election this year. The White House dismissed suggestions that Florida's exemption was a political favor to Scott. "I am not aware of any political favor that that would have been part of," spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

"Just like Florida, our states are unique with vibrant coastal economies," wrote the 22 senators, who include Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. "Providing all of our states with the same exemption from dangerous offshore oil and gas drilling would ensure that vital industries from tourism to recreation to fishing are not needlessly placed in harm’s way," they wrote.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said Zinke intends to meet with every coastal governor affected by the agency's proposed offshore drilling plan, a process that could take a year.

Democrats are not alone in pressuring Zinke to exempt their states from drilling. South Carolina's Republican Governor Henry McMaster asked Zinke for an exemption, citing the value of his state's coastal tourist economy. Maine Governor Paul LePage, a Republican, and Alaska Governor Bill Walker, an independent, are the only coastal state governors who support the expansion of offshore drilling, with many of the rest seeking exemptions following the Florida decision. Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine on Thursday joined nine Democratic senators to introduce the New England Coastal Protection Act to ban offshore drilling off New England, citing the need to protect states' valuable fishery and tourism industries. And Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate panel that oversees the Interior Department, said on Thursday that Zinke may have violated the local and public input requirements of the federal law dealing with federal offshore waters.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Zhongtian Hechuang Energy is likely to restart its low density polyethylene (LDPE) unit following a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has planned to resume operations at the unit in early-January 2018. The unit was taken off-line for maintenance on December 13, 2017.

Located at Inner Mongolia in China, the unit has a production capacity of 120,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, another major petrochemical producer in China - Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical - restarted its LDPE unit on September 2, 2017, following a brief maintenance. The unit was shut for a maintenance on September 1, 2017. Located at Guangdong in China, the unit has a production capacity of 120,000 mt/year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - The Baltic Exchange is looking into launching a freight index for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and is working with leading ship brokers to explore potential shipping routes that might be used as the LNG market grows, the company said on Thursday, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Founded in 1744 as a forum for chartering vessels, the Baltic Exchange now produces benchmark indexes for global shipping rates, including ones used by the multi-billion dollar freight derivatives market.

Singapore Exchange acquired the exchange in 2016 and since then the Baltic has been looking for new markets to develop.

The London-run business said in a statement it would work with ship brokers Affinity, Braemar ACM, Clarksons and SSY to assess a variety of potential routes before moving to a trial phase.

"The growth in LNG transported by sea has led to the formation of a spot market," Baltic Exchange Chief Executive Mark Jackson said in the statement. "However, any spot market needs to be underpinned by standard contractual terms - as already happens in the tanker and dry bulk freight markets. The Baltic Exchange is looking to support the LNG freight market as it matures and we hope to deliver greater transparency through an index."

The exchange publishes the Baltic Dry Index, which is the most widely known freight benchmark, that tracks rates for ships transporting dry bulk commodities including iron ore and coal.
MRC