Maire Tecnimont awarded contract by Sonatrach to build LAB plant in Algeria

MAIRE announces that its subsidiary Tecnimont (Integrated E&C Solutions) has been awarded by SONATRACH through a tendering process an EPCC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning) contract for a new linear alkyl benzene (LAB) plant in the industrial zone of Skikda, located 350 km east of Algeri, said the company.

LAB is a cost-effective and biodegradable intermediate used in the production of household detergents, industrial cleaners and surfactants.

The contract value is approximately USD 1.1 billion. The scope of the project entails the implementation of a new LAB plant with a production capacity of 100,000 tons per year, and the associated utilities, offsites and interconnections with the existing facilities. The completion of the project is scheduled within 44 months from the contract’s effective date.

Alessandro Bernini, Chief Executive Officer of MAIRE Group, commented: “We are honored to consolidate our track-record with SONATRACH also in consideration of the strategic relationship between our two Countries in the current global energy supply scenario. This achievement further strengthens our footprint in Algeria and allows the valorization of the downstream petrochemical value chain, where we are the undisputed world leader.”

We remind, TotalEnergies signed with Sonatrach, Occidental and Eni an extension of its Production Sharing Contract for a period of 25 years for onshore Blocks 404a and 208 in the Berkine basin, in Eastern Algeria.

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The engineering arm of industrial gas major Linde will supply an air separation unit (ASU) for a USD2.9bn urea plant in Australia, which will be the largest of its kind in the country once operational, said the company.

The plant will convert natural gas from Woodside’s Scarborough Gas Project into an estimated 2.3 million tonnes of urea per annum. According to operator Perdaman Industries, the single-train ASU will have a capacity of 63,000 normal cubic metres (Nm3) of gaseous oxygen.

Under the deal, Linde will also supply a nitrogen wash unit equipped with a 392,000 Nm3 syngas production capacity to supply the downstream ammonia plant. Robert Eichelmann, Senior Vice President Linde Engineering APAC, said that the new agreement builds on a business relationship with Perdaman stretching back more than a decade.

“The project demonstrates Linde’s capabilities in APAC and supports Australia’s growing clean energy market by providing ammonia as a low-carbon feedstock for urea production,” he added. Having committed to making the planet Net Zero by 2050, Perdaman has designed the plant to minimise both industrial emissions and the carbon footprint of fertiliser production.

The Australian government has previously stated that it plans to export about half the output of the plant to the APAC region, Brazil and the US, while the rest will help cut Australia’s reliance on fertiliser imports. According to the UN COMTRADE database on international trade, Australia’s imports of fertiliser were valued at $2.67bn during 2023.

The country’s dependence on fertiliser imports was highlighted in a report from Australian grain farmer representative GrainGrowers. The report revealed that this over-reliance was due to a high manufacturing cost structure, particularly for those using natural gas to produce ammonia and urea.

GrainGrowers proposed government funding for initiatives to bring forward timelines to take advantage of new technologies.

In 2022 Perdaman secured a USD143m low-cost loan from the government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, which adds to USD168m in two previous loans backing infrastructure to service the urea project.

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Asian Paints said that its a wholly-owned subsidiary, Asian Paints (Polymers) (APPPL) has entered into requisite agreements with Gujarat Chemical Port (GCPL) to set up an ethylene storage and handling facility in Dahej, Gujarat, said Business-standard.

GCPL, a joint venture promoted by the Government of Gujarat, has been in operation since the year 2000 and is a strategic commercial port in Dahej with an annual turnover of approximately Rs 650 crore. GCPL owns and operates a network of shore-based tank farm installations for the receipt, storage, and handling of bulk chemicals.

As a part of the arrangement with GCPL, APPPL will be providing a security deposit of Rs 460 crore to GCPL which will be refunded over a period of 17 18 years. This would be in addition to the cost of setting up the Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) and Vinyl Acetate Ethylene Emulsion (VAE) manufacturing facility as envisaged before.

We remind, crude oil processing, or refinery runs, in China averaged 14.8 MM bpd in 2023, an all-time high. The record processing came as the economy and refinery capacity grew in China following the country’s COVID-19 pandemic responses in 2022. China has increased refinery capacity more than any other country in recent years, partially to meet the country’s transportation fuel needs but also to produce feedstocks for its petrochemical industry.

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Chemours said March 6 that an internal audit review found that senior company executives, who the company placed on administrative leave last week, delayed payments to vendors while expediting the collection of receivables in the fourth quarter of 2023 to meet cash flow targets that were communicated publicly, and were part of a metric used to determine executive compensation, said the company.

The audit committee review also found that “similar actions, though to a lesser extent, were taken in the fourth quarter of 2022,” Chemours said.

President and CEO Mark Newman; senior vice president and CFO Jonathan Lock; and vice president, controller, and principal accounting officer Camela Wisel were placed on leave on Feb. 28 as the company investigated practices related to ethics hotline complaints, and management of working capital.

Chemours said a "substantially complete report of the findings of the internal review" was delivered to its board on March 5. “The Chemours board of directors takes these issues very seriously and appreciates the diligent efforts by the audit committee, with support from its counsel and company management, to review these matters,” said Chemours board chair Dawn Farrell.

"There was a lack of transparency with the company’s board by the members of senior management who were placed on administrative leave with respect to these actions," Chemours said in a statement.

Chemours said an ethics hotline report was not elevated to the general counsel or audit committee until the matter was identified during the year-end 2023 external audit. "The audit committee determined that the failure resulted from inadequate controls and procedures regarding the evaluation and escalation of hotline reports and poor judgment by certain employees who handle the intake of such reports," Chemours said.

The company said it is working to complete its year-end reporting process, including a review of internal control over financial reporting. It added that it would file its annual report on Form 10-K with the SEC “as promptly as practicable.”

We remind, Chemours Company, DuPont de Nemours, Inc. and Corteva, Inc. announced their continued support for the June 30, 2023 agreement to comprehensively resolve PFAS1-related drinking water claims of a defined class2 of public water systems.

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Oil prices were little changed as markets weighed new economic data from China against increasing supply from the Western Hemisphere, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 settled flat at USD82.96 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 ended 20 cents lower at USD78.93. China's import and export growth beat estimates, suggesting global trade is turning a corner in a positive signal for policymakers as they try to shore up economic recovery.

But even as China posted a 5.1% rise in crude imports during the first to months of the year from a year earlier, overall imports have been falling, continuing a trend of softening purchases by the world's biggest buyer.
"The import numbers were down substantially because they are not willing to pay full price for barrels," said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho. The lack of Chinese demand failed to impress the market, he said.

The global oil market is relatively well supplied with demand growth slowing and supply increasing from the Americas, the head of the International Energy Agency's (IEA) oil markets and industry division told Reuters on Thursday. Oil inventories in the U.S. rose last week for a sixth week in a row.

"The market continues to be pulled around demand concerns in China, on the one hand, and increasing supply out of the Western Hemisphere," said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates.

The markets were bracing for the likelihood that the Federal Reserve could delay its first U.S. interest rate cut to the second half of this year, which boosted the dollar, according to a Reuters poll of foreign exchange strategists. A strong greenback dents demand for dollar-denominated oil among buyers using other currencies.

On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank still expects to reduce its benchmark interest rate this year. On Thursday, the European Central Bank kept its main interest rate unchanged at 4.0% as expected.

Fuel consumption in India, the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer, rose 5.7% year-on-year in February, aided by strong factory activity.

We remind, crude oil processing, or refinery runs, in China averaged 14.8 MM bpd in 2023, an all-time high. The record processing came as the economy and refinery capacity grew in China following the country’s COVID-19 pandemic responses in 2022. China has increased refinery capacity more than any other country in recent years, partially to meet the country’s transportation fuel needs but also to produce feedstocks for its petrochemical industry.

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