Nova CEO forecasts sunrise phase for North American petchems sector

(apic-on-line) -- The first barrel of ethane from the Bakken field will go to Nova Chemicals' Joffre, Alberta facility to be value added and converted into polyethylene next year, which explains why CEO Randy Woelfel described himself at an industry event in Dubai on Thursday as very excited by all that is happening currently in the North American shale oil and gas sector.

Talking at the seventh Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemical Association forum, Woelfel pointed out that the company was well placed to exploit all that the developing shale oil and gas sector has to offer as its 2.8 million mt/year Joffre facility, which had the biggest ethylene production capacity when it was built in 2000, is close to the Bakken and Montney shale plays as well as the oil sands.

Its other plant at Sarnia, Ontario, the 1.5 billion lb/year (680,000 mt/year) Corunna cracker, is near the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in Pennsylvania. In its NOVA 2020 strategic plan released a little over a year ago, Nova Chemicals, a wholly owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Company, had said it planned to take advantage of emerging feedstock supply from Marcellus and expand its ethylene and polyethylene capacities.

Even as Saudi Arabia remains the most profitable in petrochemical production, retaining its cost advantage, the US Gulf Coast and Canada are closing the gap, Woelfel said. The US Gulf Coast especially has rapidly forged ahead to optimize the amount of pure ethane it can use as feedstock and "today the industry is sitting on something in excess of 70% of pure ethane with essentially the balance of the industry running propane and butane," he added.

The last world-scale polyethylene plant in North America was built by Nova and that was in 2000. All the announcements of new projects and expansions means a 40% increase in PE production just by the end of this decade, Woelfel said. Based on industry reports, PwC estimated in its October report that the US chemicals industry has invested USD15 billion in ethylene production, increasing capacity by 33%.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Foster Wheeler, a global engineering and construction company and power equipment supplier, has acquired Three Streams Engineering, a privately-held engineering company located in Calgary, Canada, according to hydrocarbonprocessing.

"The acquisition of Three Streams is part of our stated strategy to grow the upstream capabilities and the geographic footprint of our global engineering and construction group," said Kent Masters, CEO of Foster Wheeler. "Additionally, with Three Streams, we have taken a step to increase our presence in the Canadian SAGD market," he continued. "We are excited about the opportunities that this acquisition brings us in Canada".

Three Streams is a multi-discipline full service engineering, procurement, and construction management company with upstream and downstream projects located in Western Canada.

We remind, that, as MRC reported earlier, Lanxess has awarded a subsidiary of Foster Wheeler's Global Engineering and Construction Group an engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCm) contract for a new ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber plant to be built in Jiangsu Province, China. Foster Wheeler is currently executing the front-end engineering design (FEED) for this facility.

Besides, Foster Wheeler was awarded an engineering and procurement service contract by Reliance Industries for its paraxyline facility at Jamnagar in Gujarat.
MRC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- SABIC will focus more on technology and innovation, offer customers more technologically-advanced products and design products that meet global demand, according to Mohamed Al-Mady, CEO of Saudi producer SABIC.

In his opinion, the petrochemical industry in the Persian Gulf will have less to do with feedstock price and supply and more to do with technology and innovation.

The CEO noted that the global petrochemicals industry has worked hard to recover from the slump of late 2008 and early 2009. The Gulf petrochemical industry has also shown impressive strength and remarkable resilience, though still in its infancy, he said.

Citing the increasing importance of sustainability, Al-Mady said that it plays a significant role in the competitive landscape by providing more feedstock options and less waste. As MRC informed earlier, Sabic released its first sustainability report entitled "Sustainability+Performance" on 24 November, covering sustainability performance in 2011and reflecting systematic approach woven into corporate strategy and business focus.

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

(plastemart) -- IRPC, the petrochemical subsidiary of Thailand's PTT, will invest in a Phoenix project worth USD130 million (about Bt4 billion) next year that will increase its capacity to produce plastic pellets, polystyrene and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).

As MRC reported earlier, the company, recently studied the feasibility of building a 1-million-t/y aromatics project in the second phase of its Phoenix investment plan. The first phase of the Phoenix plan, scheduled to be completed in 2016, will raise refining capacity to 250,000 b/d from 180,000 b/d, and includes the production of raw materials for aromatics.

Next year's investment includes expanding capacity to produce styrene monomer, from the current 200,000 tons to 260,000 tpa at a cost of USD57 mln. The company will also spend USD70 mln on expanding the annual capacity to produce ABS plastic from 100,000 tons to 160,000 tons. Another USD20-30 mln will be allocated to increasing IRPC's capacity to produce premium-grade ethylene for support with green energy products, developing value-added products from oil depots and the company's lube-oil blending plant, and research and development of new products.

IRPC and its subsidiaries are currently the first fully intergrated petrochemical complex in Southeast Asia. The complany produces the following petrochemical products: ethylene, propylene, butadiene, HDPE, PP, ABS/SAN, PS, EPS.
MRC

(hydracarbonprocessing) -- Chevron CEO John Watson said Thursday the US oil company replaced pipes in at least one other US refinery based on a check of facilities following the August fire at its refinery in Richmond, California. A fire broke out in a crude distillation unit (CDU) at Chevron's 245,000 bpd Richmond refinery, as MRC informed earlier.

Investigations of the accident have so far focused on corroded pipes found in the crude-distillation unit, where the fire started, that hadn't been flagged as dangerous in an earlier unit inspection.

Chevron spokesman Russ Yarrow said the company replaced steel in the Richmond refinery in the part of the crude unit that was damaged in the fire. One of the problems with the steel in the unit was that its silicon content was too low and the company hadn't done adequate maintenance on the pipes, which were made of carbon steel.

Mr. Yarrow said the 230,000-bpd Richmond refinery is currently running at reduced capacity, but he declined to say by how much. The plant is on track to resume normal operations in the first quarter of next year, he said.

The Richmond refinery is the largest refinery in the San Francisco area and accounts for nearly 10% of refining capacity on the US West Coast.
MRC