Shell to Upgrade Singapore Petrochemical Plant

(wlsj) -- Royal Dutch Shell said Thursday that it will upgrade its petrochemical plant in Singapore to meet rising demand for ethylene in Asia.

The upgrade will increase the plant's capacity to produce olefins and aromatics—industrial chemicals used to make plastic, paint and other products—by more than 20%, the company said in a statement. It didn't say how much the expansion would cost.

"The investment will generate additional volumes to help us meet growing demand from our customers in the region," Ben van Beurden, executive vice president of Shell Chemicals, said in the statement.

The upgrade will take place during the next maintenance turn-around of the ethylene cracker, Shell said. The plant currently can produce 800,000 metric tons of ethylene a year. It mainly uses naphtha as a feedstock.

Operations at the plant began in March 2010. It is located on Bukom Island and is a part of the Shell Eastern Petrochemicals Complex, the company's largest-ever petrochemical investment. It is also integrated with Shell's largest oil refinery, which has a capacity of 500,000 barrels a day.

Recently, Shell and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) announced that they are progressing plans for the expansion of various projects at the Saudi Petrochemical Company (Sadaf).
MRC

(vopak) -- Vopak announces that they have taken the decision to build together with Sabic a new storage terminal in King Fahd Industrial Port at Jubail, Saudi Arabia. For this purpose a joint venture has been established, the Jubail Chemical Storage and Services Company (JCSSC), in which Sabic holds 75% and Vopak 25%. The plan is to finance the project from the parties’ own resources as well as through external funds.

The new facility will have an initial storage capacity of approximately 250,000 cbm. The first phase will consist of around 40 commodity and specialty chemical storage tanks, complete with truck handling and ship loading facilities for 5 berths, and is expected to be ready for commissioning early 2015. This capacity can be expanded in the future.

The investment in this industrial terminal will provide the petrochemical industry in Jubail with a critically important export facility, designed to the highest safety standards, and will enable the continued growth of the petrochemical and downstream industries in one of the largest petrochemical production locations in the world.

Royal Vopak is the world's largest independent tank storage service provider, specializing in the storage and handling of bulk liquid chemicals, gasses and oil products.

Sabic is ranked among the world's largest petrochemicals manufacturers. It is the largest public company in Saudi Arabia. The comany manufactures chemicals and intermediates, industrial polymers, fertilizers and metals. It is currently the second largest global ethylene glycol producer. Among its products are propylene, paraxylene, styrene, vinyl chloride monomer.
MRC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- Huntsman unveiled a joint venture agreement with Sinopec Jinling Co., a subsidiary of Sinopec, to build and operate a world scale propylene oxide (PO) and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) facility in Nanjing, China.

The facility is expected to be completed by the end of 2014. It will utilize Huntsman's proprietary PO/MTBE manufacturing technology.

PO is an intermediate compound used to make polyurethane materials ranging from energy-efficient home insulation and building materials to comfort foams for automobiles and furniture. MTBE is a clean burning fuel additive that improves gasoline engine performance and reduces air pollution.

Huntsman will own 49% of the joint venture, and Sinopec will own 51%. The facility will produce 550 mm lbs/year of PO and 1.6 billion lbs/year of MTBE at a capital cost of approximately USD750 million. Other details of the joint venture were not disclosed.

As MRC wrote earlier, Huntsman Corporation has acquired the remaining ownership of Russian joint venture Huntsman NMG (HNMG), giving it full ownership of the company. HNMG is a leading supplier of polyurethane systems to the adhesives, coatings and footwear markets in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
MRC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- In a move to strengthen its presence in Asia and the Chinese market, in particular, the state owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co, or Aramco, has opened a new Chinese head office in Beijing.

The new offices will provide crude oil and chemicals marketing services, joint venture coordination, procurement, inspection, research and development, project management, human resources development and communications in the region, according to the press release.

Aramco already has two joint ventures in China with Sinopec and ExxonMobil. It holds a 22.5% stake in retail oil products distributor Sinopec SenMei Petroleum Co., and a 25% stake in the Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Co., which operates a 240,000-bpd refinery. The province of Fuji also has a 25% stake in the operation.

Saudi Aramco is also planning to sell chemical products from FRPC to tap in to China's lucrative chemical market, the press release said.

Separately, as MRC informed in late October, Saudi Aramco had chosen Asian and European contractors to build the Jizan 400,000-bpd oil refinery and terminal project on the Saudi Red Sea coast together with Sinopec. Aramco will own 62.5% stakes in the project.
MRC

(GV) -- Qatar is expected to invest about USD25 billion in its petrochemical sector until 2020 as part of economic diversification, Qatar National Bank (QNB) said in a report.

As MRC informed earlier, the investment includes a planned USD6.4 bln petrochemical plant in partnership with Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and a USD5.5 bln plant in partnership with Qatar Petrochemical Co (QP), a unit of Industries Qatar, which is the largest petrochemicals producer in the country. QP has major stakes in all petrochemical production in Qatar. To diversify and expand its downstream industrial base, Qapco has set up a number of joint ventures.

The country’s petrochemical industry currently produces around 2.6 million tonnes per year (tpy) of ethylene, a crucial building block for more complex petrochemical products.

It also produces 350,000 tpy of olefins. Ethylene and olefins are then processed further to produce a range of final products with a total output of around 2.9 million tpy.

"Qatar is moving up the value chain from basic petrochemicals to more complex products," QNB said.

The Qatar Petrochemical Company produces ethylene, low density polyethylene, and sulfur. Its facilities consist of an ethylene plant producing 525,000 tonnes per annum (tpa), two low density polyethylene (LDPE) plants with 360,000 tpa and a sulphur plant with 70,000 tpa.
MRC