MOSCOW (MRC) -- Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPP), through one of its affiliates, has entered a long-term agreement with Marubeni Corp. of Japan, under which Marubeni will offtake polymer-grade propylene (PGP) produced from a second propane dehydrogenation plant (PDH 2) currently under construction at EPP’s operations in Mont Belvieu, Tex., for supply to global customers, according to Oil&Gas Journal.
Concluded on June 16, the PGP offtake agreement is part of a long-term collaboration between EPP and Marubeni that also includes the export of liquefied ethylene, the first 25-million lb vessel of which loaded and sailed from EPP and Navigator Holdings Ltd.’s 50-50 joint venture marine terminal at Morgan’s Point, Tex., in early January, EPP and Marubeni said on June 30.
While neither company revealed a precise volume of PGP included under the new agreement, Marubeni - the globe’s largest trader of olefins - said access to PGP supply included in the deal will help meet its international customers’ demand for derivative products.
Still on schedule to enter service in second-quarter 2023, PDH 2 will have the capacity to upgrade 35,000 b/d of propane into 1.65 billion lb/year of PGP.
Upon PDH2’s full commissioning, EPP said its Mont Belvieu complex equipped with capacity to produce up to 8 billion lb/year of PGP from its seven propylene fractionators and 3 billion lb/year from PDH1 and PDH2 - will have a total PDH production capacity of 11 billion lb/year to become the largest complex of its kind in the world.
As MRC reported earlier, in June 2020, Enterprise Products Partners' new ethylene export terminal in Texas signed contracts for 95% of its eventual 1 million mt/year capacity, reported S&P Global with reference to executives from Navigator Gas, the company's 50% partner in the venture.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 595,170 tonnes in the first five month of 2020, up by 10% year on year. Deliveries of all ethylene polymers, except for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), rose partially because of an increase in capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 457,930 tonnes in January-May 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Deliveris of exclusively PP random copolymer increased.
MRC