Ecolab opens plant in Vietnam

Ecolab, Inc. announced the grand opening of its new cutting-edge manufacturing plant in Ho Nai Industrial Park, near Ho Chi Minh City, said chemengonline.

This new facility demonstrates Ecolab’s continued commitment to supporting customers, innovation, and sustainability in Vietnam and throughout Southeast Asia.

The new plant has 3,000 square meters of space with an advanced laboratory, manufacturing facility and warehouse. The new facility will also provide additional local job opportunities, bringing the company’s workforce in Vietnam to more than 100 people. Ecolab supports customers in multiple industrial markets, including food service, lodging, healthcare, building facilities, food and beverage processing, manufacturing, transportation, pulp and paper, microelectronics, petrochemicals, and power generation.

We remind, Brenntag has opened a new mixing and blending facility in Vietnam, the German chemicals distributor said. The facility in Dong Nai is close to Brenntag's last mile operations, a regional tollgate with bulk storage tanks with capacities of over 21,000 cubic metres, and a jetty catering to vessels with deadweight tonnage capacity of up to 50,000, it said in a statement.

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Solenis International LLC said yesterday it plans to invest $193 million to build a polyvinyl amine (PVAm) polymer production facility and related assets at its existing site at Suffolk, Virginia, said the company.

The expanded facility will include production, packaging, a tank farm and a rail spur. PVAm is used in paper and cardboard manufacturing.

“As demand rises for sustainable manufacturing operations, this new facility not only ensures we have capacity to supply the paper packaging market, it will also help us diversify into other applications that can drive additional growth,” said John Panichella, CEO of Solenis.

The Commonwealth of Virginia’s Opportunity Fund has approved a $275,000 grant to the city of Suffolk to help with the project, Solenis said. “The company is also eligible to receive Port of Virginia tax credits and benefits from the Rail Industrial Access Program, subject to approval by the Commonwealth Transportation Board,” it added.

We remind, Solenis, a leading global producer of specialty chemicals for water-intensive industries, completed the acquisition of CedarChem LLC on October 2, 2023. As part of the acquisition, Solenis will acquire all CedarChem operating assets. Headquartered in Cedartown, Georgia, CedarChem offers a full suite of water and wastewater treatment products for industrial and municipal markets, primarily in the southeastern U.S.

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At least four oil tankers have diverted course from the Red Sea since overnight strikes by the U.S. and Britain on Houthi targets in Yemen, shipping data from LSEG and Kpler showed, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The attacks were carried out from the air and sea in response to the Iranian-backed Houthi militia's attacks on ships in the Red Sea, in what is becoming a regional escalation of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The tankers Toya, Diyyinah-I, Stolt Zulu and Navig8 Pride LHJ were all seen turning around mid-voyage in order to avoid the Red Sea between 0300 and 0730 GMT on Friday, according to ship tracking from the two companies.

One of the tankers, Toya, a very large crude carrier capable of carrying up to 2 million barrels of oil, was unladen, the data showed. The other three vessels are fuel tankers. Oil prices were up over $3 a barrel, or more than 4%, by 1144 GMT, with Brent trading above $80, amid heightened geopolitical risks.

Meanwhile, Danish oil tanker group Torm said on Friday it decided to pause all transits through the southern Red Sea.

Major container shipping companies Maersk and Hapag Lloyd welcomed measures to secure the region. But they stopped short of saying whether the U.S. and British strikes would be enough for them to return to the Suez Canal, the fastest route between Asia and Europe which accounts for about 12% of global container traffic.

We remind, Indonesia's oil and gas lifting this year is likely to fall below government targets, upstream oil and gas regulator SKK Migas said on Friday but pledged efforts to fill the gap. SKK Migas predicts lifting of oil at 596,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2024 and gas at 5,544 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) based on work plans submitted by contractors. That compares with government targets of 635,000 bpd and 5,785 mmscfd.

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Bulgaria is replacing Russian oil imports with crude from Kazakhstan, Iraq and Tunisia in January, according to traders and LSEG data, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Bulgaria has a waiver from a European Union embargo that allows it to continue seaborne imports of Russian oil in 2024. But the country has restricted exports of all refined products produced from Russian crude from this month, which makes it almost impossible for its sole refinery to run on Russian oil, and has decided to stop all Russian crude imports from March.

Bulgaria purchases oil to feed its Burgas refinery, which has a capacity of 190,000 barrels per day (bpd) and is operated by Russia's Lukoil. Bulgaria was the fourth largest buyer of seaborne Russian oil in 2023, purchasing over 100,000 bpd.

But this month, no oil from Russia is set to reach Burgas port. As Lukoil is no longer able to supply the Burgas refinery with its own Urals oil, it has to use oil from elsewhere, raising costs at the plant.

The profitability of the plant is also affected by a 60% tax imposed by Bulgaria's government on the refinery's profits.

So far in January, Burgas is set to receive two 70,000 metric ton cargoes of Kazakhstan's KEBCO crude, one 76,000 ton cargo of Basrah Light, one 50,000 ton cargo of CPC Blend, and 33,000 tons of oil from Tunisia, according to LSEG data.

KEBCO, a Kazakh grade exported from Russian ports with the same quality as Urals, is the most likely replacement for Russian oil in Bulgaria, traders said, adding its supply is limited and its price is significantly higher than for Urals.

Burgas is designed to process Urals oil and currently can only run on sour grades, which is difficult and pricey in the EU, traders said.

We remind, TotalEnergies, a globally recognized energy corporation, recently announced a delay in the reboot of its mixed-feed ethylene cracker facility situated in Antwerp, Belgium. This facility, which boasts an annual production capacity of 580,000 metric tons, has had its restart schedule pushed to the second half of January, a move that signifies the intricate challenges inherent in such large-scale operations.

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Central Asian countries, Afghanistan and Mongolia raised their imports of Russian fuel by around 28% in 2023 to almost 6 MMt, partially offseting a decline in Russian supplies to Europe, according to traders and industry data, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Russia has drastically cut supplies of commodities, including oil and gas, to Europe amid deteriorating relations over the conflict in Ukraine.

Afghanistan's Taliban government doubled purchases of Russian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) last year to 103,850 tons, while Russia tripled gasoline exports to the country in 2023 to 325,000 tons, according to the data.

Russia has not formally recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government in Afghanistan, but was one of the first countries to make contacts and clinch business deals with the group following its return to power in 2021.

A year later, Afghanistan and Russia signed a deal for gasoline, diesel, gas and wheat supplies after Moscow offered the Taliban administration a discount to average global commodity prices.

The move was the first known major international economic deal struck by the Taliban since it returned to power.

Russia supplies fuel to Central Asia mainly via railways, while pipeline exports of diesel to the region account for some 9% of total deliveries to the ex-Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft said this week that it increased fuel supplies to Central Asia by 29.3% to 530,000 tons in 2023.

According to traders and industry data, Russian gasoline exports to Central Asia, Mongolia and Afghanistan jumped by a third last year to 2.441 million tons.

Supplies of diesel to those markets increased by 26% to 2.943 million tons, while flows of jet fuel rose by 21% to 554,000 tons.

Fuel oil exports jumped 2.8 times to 719,500 tons, while bitumen and LPG deliveries doubled to 500,000 tons and 469,000 tons respectively.

Mongolia accounted for most of Russian motor fuel supplies. It imported 708,000 tons of gasoline via railways last year, an increase of 12%. Its diesel purchases rose 39% to 1.222 million tons.

We remind, Empire Navigation Inc, the Greek shipowner of an oil tanker seized by Iran, said it sought any help from the U.S. government in regaining control of its vessel in a U.S. court filing on Thursday. For nearly a year, the tanker has been a lightning rod in tensions between Tehran and the Washington, which has long imposed sanctions on Iranian oil over its nuclear program. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes.

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