PTT Global to resume production at MEG unit in October

(ccfgroup) -- Thailand's largest petrochemical maker, PTT Global Chemical Pcl said on Thursday it expected to begin operations of its mono ethylene glycol (MEG) plant at the Map Ta Phut industrial estate in October after a two-year delay.

The plant, one of the projects suspended due to environmental concerns since late 2009, has the capacity to produce 95,000-96,000 tonnes annually, PTTGC Chief Executive Anon Sirisaengtaksin told reporters.

PTT Global Chemical Public Company Limited is one of the leading petroleum refiners and suppliers of refined petroleum products in Thailand. The Polymer product business produce a wide range of plastic products for use in various industries. Among the main products are HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE, PS.
MRC

(news.szenergy) -- China’s monoethylene glycol imports in August rose 11.76% from a month earlier to 659,089 mt, customs data released Saturday showed. The imports were down 1.69% from a year ago.

Chinese buyers sought spot MEG cargoes for August in a bid to cover a supply shortfall from Kuwait due to an unplanned outage.

Kuwait’s Equate shut its 550,000 mt/year MEG plant on July 31 after a fire. MEG plant would be restarted in the middle of November. China’s MEG imports from Kuwait fell 36.67% on month to 45,193 mt.

Market sources said China’s MEG imports from Saudi Arabia would likely fall in the coming months also due to a plant shutdown. Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Petrochemical Company, or Sharq, shut its 700,000 mt/year No. 4 MEG plant in Jubail from early September for 10-12 weeks of maintenance. Sharq is owned 50% by Sabic and 50% by a Japanese consortium led by trading house Mitsubishi Corp. China imported 303,953 mt of MEG from Saudi Arabia in August, up 5.69% from a month earlier.

Meanwhile, China’s MEG imports from the US plunged 73.76% from a month earlier to 3,204 mt as Hurricane Issac disrupted MEG plant operations there late August. With a tight supply situation still persisting in the US, China’s MEG imports from the US will likely be at a low level in September as well, according to market sources.
MRC

(Reuters) -- Nova Chemicals Corp will take a unit down at its Corunna, Ontario, olefins plant, one of Canada's largest petrochemical complexes, for unplanned repairs, the company said.

Nova will make repairs to a unit known as a flexicracker, which processes both natural gas liquids and heavy crude oil, spokesman Pace Markowitz said in an email.

Markowitz said he could not provide more details or the expected duration of the outage. Blackburn News reported that higher-than-normal flaring would continue for 12-24 hours.

The Corunna complex produces as much as 40 percent of Canada's basic petrochemicals and processes 80,000 barrels a day.

As MRC wrote earlier, NOVA Chemicals has been named the ICIS Company of the Year. Canada-based NOVA Chemicals is owned by Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC). Nova Chemicals has a series of growth projects of its own in development in Ontario Chemical Valley, including the possible construction of a new world-scale polyethylene plant in Sarnia-Lambton.
MRC

(Platts) -- Chemicals major Ineos said it has signed an agreement to secure ethane from the US that it will use as a feedstock to operate its steam crackers in Europe.

It has agreed a long-term deal with Range Resources Corp. for the lifting of ethane from the Marcus Hook facility, located near Philadelphia, from 2015.

The agreement is effective upon the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's approval of the Mariner East project, a pipeline, processing and terminalling project that will interconnect the natural gas liquids resources in southwest Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook facility, operated by Sunoco Logistics.

These agreements with the Sunoco units will be valid for 15 years and will provide Ineos Olefins & Polymers Europe with "significant supply options for the future," Ineos said in a statement late-Wednesday.

Once completed, the Mariner East project will transport 70,000 b/d of ethane and propane from Houston, Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook terminal.

Ethane will then be separated by fractionation and held in storage ready for shipment to Europe, Ineos said, adding it is expected that ethane from the Mariner East Project will become available in the first half of 2015.

"Ineos can now position itself as an attractive customer for upstream companies with interests in the Marcellus, Utica and Upper Devonian gas formations. We will provide these companies with a credible option to diversify sales and supply ethane into our downstream cracker complexes in Europe," Thompson said.

As MRC wrote earlier, in September, eleven employees from Tobolsk-Polymer were trained in INEOS, Houston, Texas (USA). During training staff familiar with the technology of gas-phase polymerization of propylene Innovene PP. INEOS is Sibur's licensor of engineering of largest ethylene pyrolysis in integrated complex "ZapSibNeftehim in Tobolsk.

Ineos operates steam crackers in Grangemouth in the UK, Cologne in Germany, Lavera in France and Rafnes in Norway.
MRC

(polymerupdate) -- Jiaxing Petrochemical Co. Ltd is operating its new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant at lower rates.

Located at Jiaxing, Zhejiang province in China, the new PTA plant has a production capacity of 1.5 million mt/year. The company started commercial production at the plant on September 2, 2012.

The plant is currently operating at 70% production capacity rates. The company is likely to increase the operating rates to 100% by the end of the current week.

Jiaxing Petrochemical’s parent firm – Tongkun Group – runs six polyester yarn plants at Tongxiang in Zhejiang province, with a total capacity of 1.6m tonnes/year.

PTA is the primary feedstock of polyester production. A 1.5m tonne/year PTA plant can meet requirement for the production of 1.7m tonnes/year polyester products.

MRC