Reliance plans maintenance at Jamnagar refining complex

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Reliance Industries (RIL) is planning to shut down one of its four crude distillation units for maintenance and inspection (M&I) activities later this month, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The maintenance work is scheduled to begin on March 20 and last for about three-and-a-half weeks.

Reliance says the work will enable it to carry out necessary modifications to improve the reliability and performance of the unit.

This planned shutdown period will also be utilized for catalyst replacement in VGO and the naphtha hydrotreater. The rest of the refinery will continue at normal levels of operations, according to company officials.

We remind that last year, as MRC informed previously, RIL announced that it would invest over Rs 100,000 crore in expansion of its petrochemical capacities and adding value to its refining business. Besides, in October 2012, the company unveiled its plans to expand capacity at its refineries in the western state of Gujarat.

Reliance is also building one of the world’s largest ethylene crackers taking advantage of refinery integration at Jamnagar. This project will be commissioned in H2-2016 and would nearly double the ethylene capacity to 3.3 mln tpa.

Reliance Industries is one of the world's largest producers of polymers. The company's polymer production in 2010-11 (polypropylene, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride) made 4,094 kilo tonnes.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Jilin Petrochemical is in plans to shut its high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant for maintenance turnaround, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the plant is planned to be shut in mid-April 2014. It is likely to remain off-stream for around one month.

Located in Jilin province, China, the plant has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote before, Shanghai Golden Phillips Petrochemical shut its HDPE plant on March 3, 2014. The shutdown has been attributed to high cost of feedstock ethylene. Located in Shanghai, China, the plant has a production capacity of 135,000 mt/year.

Besides, Chinese Wuhan Petrochemicals shut down its HDPE plant in mid-January 2014 owing to technical issues. A restart date for the plant could not be confirmed. Located in Hubei province of China, the plant has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global technology and specialty materials company, has announced a range of detectable polymer technologies that can help original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers ensure products contain components and parts that meet their material specifications, as per the company's press release.

"Celanese is working with customers to help them meet their security and safety needs as they relate to protecting against counterfeiting," said Stefan Kutta, global director, Celanese Transportation industry. "These technologies are especially important today in light of several recalls due to inferior and counterfeit materials."

Engineered materials from Celanese are available with anti-counterfeiting technologies to help assist OEM and Tier suppliers in reducing the potential risk and loss of revenue from counterfeits in automotive parts, consumer products, medical devices, packaging and consumer electronics.

Available anti-counterfeiting technologies include:
- Unambiguous part analysis based on unique engineered material additives;
- Ultraviolet-detectable technologies for enhanced quality control that are primarily used in the production of complex medical devices;
- Printing and laser marking technologies that allow Celanese engineered materials to be marked with a visible barcode, such as manufacturer, batch number and raw material/batch.

As MRC reported earlier, in November 2013, Celanese informed employee delegates in Roussillon, France, and work council in Tarragona, Spain, of contemplated closures of the Roussillon acetic anhydride facility and the vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) production unit in Tarragona. The company said it placed great effort in identifying credible buyers that could ensure sustainable operations, retain employees and meet the financial criteria defined by the company to ensure successful future operations of the VAM production unit in Tarragona and the acetic anhydride plant in Roussillon. However, no credible buyers were identified and no offers for acquiring these facilities were made.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil Chemical announced that it will build facilities to manufacture premium halobutyl rubber and Escorez hydrogenated hydrocarbon resin at its recently-expanded petrochemical complex in Singapore, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Engineering and procurement activities have begun, with construction expected to begin in the second half of 2014 and completion anticipated in 2017.

The company is a major supplier of halobutyl rubber to the global tire industry, and this expansion project will add production capacity of 140,000 tpy, according to ExxonMobil officials.

The hydrogenated hydrocarbon resin production unit will be the world’s largest, with a capacity of 90,000 tpy, to meet long-term demand growth for hot-melt adhesives.

"Our expanded steam cracking capability at Singapore provides a platform for growth through a wide range of petrochemical building blocks that can be further upgraded to specialty products,” said Steve Pryor, president of ExxonMobil Chemical. "We continue to invest in expanding capacity at our strategic hub in Singapore, which is an ideal location to efficiently serve the fast growing Asia Pacific market."

As MRC informed earlier, ExxonMobil started operations at its new ethylene world-scale steam crackers in Singapore in early 2013.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine will boost liquefied natural gas demand from European countries eager to diversify their access to the fuel, said Hydrocarbonprocessing, citing Hoegh LNG Holdings.

The crisis in Ukraine, which transits more than 15% of Europe’s gas use, may boost demand for floating LNG import terminals such as the one the Hamilton, Bermuda-based company will deliver to Lithuania this year, the first in the former Soviet Union, CEO Sveinung Stoehle said.

“It will create an extra push in demand," he said in an Oslo interview. "It will put even more focus on energy independence, especially on gas. The only way you can be independent on gas is to import LNG."

LNG exports from the US, which is building plants to ship the fuel after a boom in production, will boost global annual supply by about 40 million metric tons in 2017 from today’s 250 million, Stoehle said. That is already creating demand for import terminals and tankers that will extend to European nations such as Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Italy and Croatia, he said.

The standoff between Russia and Ukraine, which escalated over the weekend when Moscow invaded the Crimean peninsula, should lead US authorities to ease restrictions on gas exports, industry groups and politicians including House Speaker John Boehner said this week.

While the first of six government-approved US export projects won’t start output before next year, the Energy Department is considering at least 24 applications for new terminals.

As MRC reported earlier, Shell and Ukrainian Company "Nadra Yuzovsky" on Thursday, 24 January, in Davos, signed a production sharing agreement (PSA) for the developments of shale gas at Yuzovsky area, Ukraine. Each partner has a 50% interest in the project. Shell will be the operator of the project, responsible for all activities under the agreement. The agreement was signed for a period of 50 years.
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