Romanian OMV Petrom to improve reliability of refinery operations with Honeywell connected plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell has announced that OMV Petrom S.A. will use Honeywell Connected Plant to provide prescriptive monitoring of its CCR Platforming unit at its Petrobrazi refinery in Ploiesti, Romania, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The CCR Platforming process upgrades low-value naphtha into high-octane gasoline and aromatics.

OMV will use the Honeywell Connected Plant’s Process Insight Reliability Advisor to continuously feed plant data through Honeywell UOP process and fault models, and to provide key performance information and process recommendations. Honeywell’s Reliability Advisor will help the plant run more smoothly and mitigate issues that impact production and plant profitability by detecting and analyzing problems before they occur.

"Reliability Advisor is unique in the industry because it applies Honeywell UOP’s proprietary process knowledge and deep troubleshooting experience to recommend operational adjustments sooner and more accurately than has ever been possible before," said Zak Alzein, Vice President, Connected Plant, at Honeywell UOP. "Plants with this service can run consistently at the top of their capability."

Honeywell Connected Plant is a suite of applications that delivers higher levels of safety, reliability, efficiency and profitability. These proven industry solutions are based on decades of domain knowledge and controls experience. They turn data into actionable insight to optimize operations, predict plant failures and eliminate unplanned downtime.

As part of Honeywell’s Connected Plant portfolio, Reliability Advisor gives refineries, petrochemical and gas processing plants greater visibility into their operations, helping identify and resolve problems that often avoid detection and hamper production, and preventing unplanned shutdowns for maintenance and repair that can cost plant operators millions of dollars per year in lost productivity.

"Process Reliability Advisor is a powerful part of Honeywell Connected Plant because it combines process data with UOP expertise enabled by software to provide our customers with ongoing service," Alzein said. "This service can tie plant data to the right domain knowledge to gain new insights to improve operational reliability."

Bucharest-based OMV Petrom is an integrated oil and gas company. It is the largest producer of crude oil in Romania and provides nearly half of Romania’s domestic natural gas. The company’s Petrobrazi refinery near Ploiesti has a refining capacity of 4.5 million tons per year.

As MRC informed before, in February 2018, Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) announced that BASF had opened a state-of-the-art control room equipped with Honeywell Experion technology at its waste incineration complex in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
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MOSCOW (MRC) - US crude oil stockpiles fell more than expected, while gasoline and distillate inventories posted surprise builds as refiners ramped up their activity to the highest since January ahead of Memorial Day weekend, reported Reuters with reference to the Energy Information Administration.

Crude inventories fell 3.6 million barrels in the week to May 25, compared with analysts' expectations for a decrease of 525,000 barrels.

The drawdown assuaged some worries from U.S. traders who have watched the West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) benchmark weaken due to high production levels and signals that OPEC will let its supply-cut pact come to a close.

"The report was supportive due to the large drop in crude oil inventories which was a function of a trifecta of bullish elements: strong demand from refiners, a sizeable drop in crude oil imports, and rebound in exports," said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

Refinery crude runs rose 527,000 barrels per day to 17.2 million bpd as utilization rates jumped 2.1 percentage points to 93.9 percent of total capacity, both the highest runs and rates since January, EIA data showed.

Gasoline stocks rose by 534,000 barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.4 million-barrel drop.

Demand for the motor fuel over the past four weeks rose 0.8 percent year-on-year ahead of the Memorial day weekend which marks the official start to the summer driving season in the United States.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, grew by 634,000 barrels, versus expectations for a 1.3 million-barrel draw, the EIA data showed.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rosneft Deutschland GmbH, a Rosneft subsidiary, implemented first deliveries of Alfabit bitumen product to its customers in Germany, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The polymer-modified bitumen based on Rosneft’s own technology was produced in Schwedt using bitumen from PCK Refinery.

In order to supply customers from Germany and other countries with high-quality bitumen products, Rosneft Deutschland intends to set up a sales network of PMB in Germany using the feed coming from PCK, Bayernoil and MIRO refineries.

The company adopted the formulation of Alfabit bitumen product, which successfully passed the tests in severe Russian climate conditions and demonstrated resistance to high loads.

A distinctive feature of Alfabit is its high elasticity and wear resistance. Asphalt mixtures with the addition of Alfabit PMB significantly increase the service life of the pavement and extend interrepair operation time. PMB Alfabit was used, among other things, for road coating of the Formula 1 track in Sochi, which confirms the high level of product quality.

As MRC informed before, in late June 2017, Rosneft and Sinopec Group signed a Framework Agreement on joint pre-feasibility study of the project related to the construction and operation of a gas processing and petrochemical complex in East Siberia. The Agreement signed in furtherance of the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in petrochemical projects, provides to select a technology for natural gas processing from its components to polymers. The parties also decided to choose a consultant for the project management and identified competitive challenges and the time to fix them before entering the stage front-end engineering design (FEED). In the event of successful outcomes as stipulated by the Framework Agreement, it is supposed to create a joint venture between Rosneft and Sinopec in 2017. The project will meet the growing demand for polyethylene and polypropylene in Russia and in China.

Rosneft became Russia's largest publicly traded oil company in March 2013 after the USD55 billion takeover of TNK-BP, which was Russia’s third-largest oil producer at the time.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell has announced that it has declared a dividend of USD1.00 per share, to be paid June 18, 2018 to shareholders of record June 11, 2018, with an ex-dividend date of June 8, 2018, said the producer in its press release.

The company also announced that at its Annual General Meeting on June 1, 2018, shareholders approved the amendments to its Articles of Association that implement the transition from a dual board structure to a unitary board of directors. In connection with this transition, each of the director nominees, including Bob Patel, the Chief Executive Officer, was elected to serve on the unitary board. Also, as a part of the board's succession planning process, Jacques Aigrain has been appointed as Non-Executive Vice Chair of the board.

The company also announced that shareholders approved a new share repurchase program authorizing the company to repurchase up to 10 percent of the company's shares over the next 18 months. The repurchases will be executed from time to time through open market or privately negotiated transactions.

"The strong and consistent performance of our global portfolio of businesses has allowed us to return more than USD29 billion to our shareholders through dividend payments and share repurchases over the past seven years," said Bob Patel, CEO of LyondellBasell. "We remain confident in our ability to advance shareholder value in changing markets, and strong returns for shareholders will continue to be a fundamental component of our capital deployment strategy."

The amount and timing of future share repurchases and dividends will depend on, and be subject to, market conditions, general economic conditions, applicable legal requirements and other corporate considerations. The share repurchase program and dividend policy may be suspended or discontinued at any time. This share repurchase program does not obligate LyondellBasell to acquire any particular amount of shares. LyondellBasell had approximately 391 million shares outstanding as of May 30, 2018.

As MRC wrote previously, in August 2016, LyondellBasell made the final investment decision to build a high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant on the US Gulf Coast. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1.1 billion pounds (500,000 metric tons) and will be the first commercial plant to employ LyondellBasell's new proprietary Hyperzone PE technology. The start-up of the new plant is scheduled for 2019.

LyondellBasell is one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world. Driven by its 13,000 employees around the globe, LyondellBasell produces materials and products that are key to advancing solutions to modern challenges like enhancing food safety through lightweight and flexible packaging, protecting the purity of water supplies through stronger and more versatile pipes, and improving the safety, comfort and fuel efficiency of many of the cars and trucks on the road. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Greece has received five expressions of interest for a majority stake in its biggest oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum, reported Reuters with reference to the country's privatizations agency.

Greece last month launched a tender to sell at least 50.1 percent of Hellenic in one of the biggest asset sales under Athens' three international bailouts since 2010.

Initial interest was submitted by Alrai Group Holdings Limited, a consortium comprising Carbon Asset Management DWC-LLC and Alshaheen Group, Gupta Family Group Alliance, Glencore Energy UK and Vitol Holding B.V., the agency said.

Greece and Paneuropean Oil and Industrial Holding are jointly selling a stake of at least 50.1 percent in the refiner.

Hellenic is Europe's third-biggest oil refiner based on its market value of 2.2 billion euros. Paneuropean Oil owns 45.5 percent and the Greek government holds a 35.5 percent stake.

The deadline for making submissions expired at 1400 GMT on Wednesday.

Sources have said that Greece and Paneuropean Oil want to maintain a stake of about 15 percent each in Hellenic. The exact size of the holding to be sold will not be disclosed until short-listed investors are invited to submit binding offers.

The agency said its advisers would evaluate the expressions of interest and make recommendations to its board of directors on the companies qualifying for the next phase of the tender.
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