MOSCOW (MRC) -- Italian energy group Eni and Chevron Lummus Global LLC, (CLG) have announced the execution of a Joint Cooperation and Licensing Agreement for a complete suite of residue hydrocracking solutions, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.
This will include Eni's EST (Eni Slurry Technology) and LC-FINING, LC-MAX, LC-SLURRY and LC-LSFO technologies from CLG. These world-class technologies will offer refiners a wide range of conversion options, including complete conversion of residua to valuable distillate products.
Both CLG and Eni bring deep investments in research and development that have led to the fast commercialization of cutting-edge residue hydrocracking technologies and superior technical and engineering services to support these technologies. Eni brings its EST technology to this cooperative arrangement as the market leader in slurry hydrocracking processes, offering to its clients a very high conversion competitive advantage. CLG's residue hydrocracking technologies based on a liquid circulation ebullated bed platform are the most widely used and solidly reliable residue hydrocracking technologies in the market for moderate to high conversion.
The agreement will enable Eni and CLG to utilize and enhance the complementary nature of their respective hydrocracking technologies, offering clients the most comprehensive array of solutions on a large commercial operating base. Eni and CLG will work closely at their leading-edge R&D facilities in Italy and the United States to develop the next generation of process and catalyst technologies suited to address the complete conversion of low-value residua and alternative feedstocks to valuable transportation fuels and petrochemical precursors.
As MRC reported earlier, Eni is evaluating conversion of its Livorno refinery in northwest Italy into a biorefinery, as part of the Italian company's wider strategy to make its activities more environmentally sustainable. Eni has already converted two of its Italian refineries and is looking to almost double its biorefining capacity to around 2 million mt/year by 2024, and expand this to at least five times by 2050, as part of its pledge to achieve complete carbon neutrality by 2050.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
Eni, abbreviation of Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, in full Eni SpA, Italian energy company operating primarily in petroleum, natural gas, and petrochemicals. Established in 1953, it is one of Europe's largest oil companies in terms of sales.
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