MOSCOW (MRC) -- German refiner Klesch will postpone scheduled turnaround work at its refinery near Hamburg until late summer because of the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, reported Chemweek with reference to a spokesperson for the refinery's statement to OPIS.
The 90,000-b/d refinery, known as Raffinerie Heide, was due to undergo planned maintenance in June. “The maintenance will now take place in late summer 2020,” the spokesperson says.
The company said at the end of April it had optimized production at the refinery in response to lower demand amid the COVID-19 outbreak. “We are able to reoptimize our operations in order to divert products and feedstocks away from low-demand products and channel them towards the production of other, less impacted products,” the spokesperson says. The plant has also diverted gasoline-blending ethanol to sell it as a standalone product on the back of increased demand for cleaning and hygiene products.
The Heide refinery is a key jet fuel supplier to the nearby Hamburg airport.
OPIS is an IHS Markit company.
We remind that, as MRC informed earlier, in late 2019, the TOTAL refinery in Leuna awarded Bilfinger two further major contracts worth roughly EUR30 million: the first involves exchanging the reactor systems; the second, performing the turnaround for the plant’s POX methanol facility.
We alos remind that Total is evaluating new gas cracker project in South Korea as part of petchems growth strategy.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 557,060 tonnes in the first three month of 2020, up by 7% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments rose because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. Demand for LDPE subsided. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 267,630 tonnes in January-March 2020, down 20% year on year. Homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers accounted for the main decrease in imports.
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