Brooge Petroleum to build oil refinery in Fujairah

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The United Arab Emirates’ Brooge Petroleum and Gas Investment Co (BPGIC) said that it plans to set up an oil refinery in Fujairah to produce bunker fuel that complies with new international laws capping sulfur content in shipping fuels, reported Reuters.

The first phase of the planned 250,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery will be completed in the first quarter of 2020, the company said in a statement.

New regulations from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) will require ships to use fuels with a sulfur content below 0.5% beginning in 2020. Current shipping fuel is much dirtier, with a higher sulfur content.

As MRC wrote before, in September 2018, Borouge PP Plant EPCBorouge signed the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract with Maire Tecnimont Group for building its fifth polypropylene (PP) plant with a capacity of 480,000 t/y in Ruwais to increase production capacity of PP by 25% to 2.24 million tonnes t/y. This opens up new opportunities to integrate with the local industries. The new PP5 plant will be added to the existing Borouge 3 plants in Ruwais scheduled to be commissioned in Q3 2021.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Bilfinger has been chosen as maintenance partner for a EUR60 million contract by SABIC UK Petrochemicals Limited to carry out a range of services across facilities on its Teesside site, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The services will include mechanical, electrical and instrumentation engineering, as well as access, insulation, painting, and asbestos management and removal. The four-year contract has a volume of circa ?50 million (EUR57.8 million) and comes under Bilfinger’s Engineering & Maintenance service line.

“Bilfinger has a strong track record of industrial services on such large scale assets. With our Bilfinger Maintenance Concept, we help our customers boost asset efficiency and availability while cutting maintenance costs. SABIC has chosen a reliable partner in Bilfinger with a long history of proven experience to ensure smooth production and short downtimes at one of its largest sites,” Tom Blades, CEO of Bilfinger said.

Bilfinger employs 2,500 employees in the UK, with approximately 200 employees dedicated to the engineering and maintenance services for SABIC.

Bilfinger’s services for process industry customers include design and build, automated control and electrical systems, installation and commissioning as well as operations and maintenance.

MRC informed earlier, SABIC has announced that the company is making significant investments in expanding the capacity of its ULTEM and EXTEM high heat resin production in order to meet growing demand.
The new production plant in Singapore is due to come on-stream in the first half of 2021, making SABIC the only high heat resin producer with manufacturing capability in all regions.

SABIC is a global chemical company, employing over 540 people across two sites in Teesside. Its Wilton site is located on Wilton International, one of the UK’s leading process manufacturing sites.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Stratasys has established an authorised materials partner programme designed to expand the range of high-performance polymers available to manufacturers leveraging Stratasys’ fused deposition modelling process using FDM Technology in 3D printing applications, said Britishplastics.

As an initial step, advanced materials leader Solvay has been selected to help launch the programme and deliver new polymers for the Stratasys F900 3D Printer.

For more than two decades, Stratasys has helped customers engineer durable, highly repeatable 3D printed parts for high-performance environments leveraging its advanced materials, including FDM Nylon 12CF, FDM TPU 92A, and Antero 800 PEKK-based material.

Under the authorised materials partner programme, Solvay will access exclusive tools and Stratasys expertise to develop materials aligned with the company’s quality and performance benchmarks.

The partners will share an authorised partner materials roadmap to guide Solvay’s selection and development of materials for Stratasys FDM printers.

Stratasys is unveiling its collaboration agreement with Solvay at RAPID+TCT 2019 at the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- China’s privately owned Hengli Petrochemical has increased its Saudi Arabian crude imports for April and May as it prepares to bring a new refinery in northeastern China to full capacity, reported Reuters with reference to officials and ship tracking data.

The purchases have kept Saudi crude exports to China elevated so far in the second quarter despite lower global demand during peak refinery maintenance season. Saudi oil exports to China averaged at 1.37 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first four months this year, up from 1.01 million bpd in the same period of 2018, Refinitiv trade flow data showed.

Hengli is expected to lift 6 million to 8 million barrels of Saudi crude in May (194,000 bpd to 258,000 bpd), after loading about 8 million barrels in April, the highest monthly intake since it started trial runs at its 400,000-bpd refinery in December, one of the sources said.

"The plant is now running at 85 to 90 percent capacity. It can reach full capacity very, very soon," said a company executive with direct knowledge of the plant’s operation.

A second company source said the plant is targeting May 20 for full operations.

A company spokesman confirmed that Hengli aims to bring the plant - located in the port city of Dalian - to full operation sometime later this month, without giving further details.

From June onwards, Hengli’s Saudi oil intake will average around 4 million to 6 million barrels per month, while the remaining supplies will be made up of Iraq’s Basra Light crude and Brazil’s Marlim grade, said the company executive.

"We like Saudi oil in general, as it yields fairly good margins for the plant," the executive said.

Hengli has signed on to buy 130,000 bpd of crude from Saudi Aramco, a deal that started in the second-half of 2018.

Hengli loaded about 2 million barrels per month of Saudi oil in the first quarter, according to one of the sources and Refinitiv data, helping to keep the company’s total liftings so far this year within contractual volume.

Hengli said in March its plant successfully produced oil products and paraxylene, a petrochemical used to make textiles and bottles.

Saudi Arabia was China’s top oil supplier for a second straight month in March, overtaking Russia, and thanks to supply agreements with Hengli and another new privately controlled refiner Rongsheng Petrochemical.

Hengli, new to the refined fuel market, has deployed more than 200 employees for domestic marketing, with plans to lease storage space in Tianjin in north China, Yangzhou and Jiangyin in the eastern province of Jiangsu, and Dongguan in the southern province of Guangdong, said the second company official.

As MRC wrote before, in April 2017, LyondellBasell announced Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Chemical Co., Ltd. had selected LyondellBasell Hostalen ACP polyethylene (PE) process technology. The technology will be used for a 400 KTA high density polyethylene (HDPE) unit to be built in the Hengli Petrochemical Industrial Park (HPIP) on Changxing Island in Dalian, Liaoning Province, China.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Pucheng Clean Energy Chemical Company has undertaken a planned shutdown at its Coal-to-olefins (CTO) plant, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has commenced turnaround at the plant on May 13, 2019. The plant is likely to resume production in the first week of June 2019.

Located at Weinan, Shaanxi, China, the CTO plant has an ethylene production capacity of 300,000 mt/year and propylene capacity of 400,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, on May 28, 2018, Pucheng Clean Energy restarted its PP plant following an unplanned shutdown. The plant remaind off-line for around one week owing to technical issues. Located at Shaanxi province in China, the plant has a PP production capacity of 400,000 mt/year.

Besides, Pucheng Clean Energy shut this PP plant for an unplanned maintenance from 21 October to 12 November, 2018.
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