Idemitsu shuts refinery after earthquake

MOCOW (MRC) -- Idemitsu Kosan, one of Japan’s largest refining and petrochemical companies, has shut all units at its 120,000 barrels-per-day Tokuyama refinery complex in western Japan after a strong earthquake, reported Reuters with reference to the company's Friday statement.

An earthquake of magnitude 6.3 struck off Japan's southern island of Kyushu near the city of Oita, the US Geological Survey said.

Naphtha crackers at the Tokuyama plant with the capacity to produce 687,000 tonnes of ethylene a year were also shut down, a company spokeswoman said, adding that it was unclear when operations would resume.

Idemitsu's ethylene units caught fire more than two hours after the quake, but the fire was put out soon after, the company said.

The earthquake did not hit the operations of other refineries in western Japan run by JX Nippon Oil & Energy, Cosmo Oil Co, Taiyo Oil Co, and Seibu Oil Co, which is a part of the Showa Shell Sekiyu group.

There was no impact to naphtha crackers run by Showa Denko and Asahi Kasei, company spokespeople said.

Mitsubishi Chemical Corp reported no impact to its Mizushima naphtha cracker, but shut three polyethylene units at the complex there, with operations expected to return to normal later in the day.

As MRC wrote before, Idemitsu Kosan is in plans to shut its SM plant for maintenance turnaround in April 2014. It will remain off-stream for around one month. Located in Chiba, Japan, the plant has a production capacity of 210,000 mt/year.

Idemitsu Kosan is a Japanese petroleum company. It owns and operates oil platforms, refineries and produces and sells petroleum, oils and petrochemical products. The company runs two petrochemical plants in Chiba and Tokuyama. The two naphtha crackers can produce up to 997,000 tonnes of ethylene per year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Energy and chemical giant Sasol reported it is making progress on the engineering and design of its Westlake complex, a multibillion-dollar project that includes an ethane cracker and a facility to turn natural gas into diesel in southwest Louisiana, said Teadvocate.

The Paris-based company expects to reach a final decision on whether to proceed with the ethane cracker sometime this year, and the gas-to-liquids facility 18 to 24 months afterward. The complex’s cost has been estimated at USD16 billion to USD21 billion.

The ethane cracker breaks natural gas into smaller molecules to make ethylene, which is used in making plastic.

Sasol’s GTL complex is expected to produce more than 96,000 barrels of diesel fuels and chemicals each day. The facilities are expected to create more than 1,250 direct jobs with an average annual salary of nearly USD88,000, plus benefits.

As MRC informed before, INEOS Enterprises announced that it has agreed to purchase Sasol Solvents Germany GmbH, one of European leading solvent manufacturers. The acquisition which is conditional on approval by the relevant competition authorities comprises production facilities in Germany, based at Herne and Moers, employing around 520 people.

Sasol Limited is an integrated energy and chemical company that began in Sasolburg, South Africa in 1950. It develops and commercialises technologies and builds and operates world-scale facilities to produce a range of product streams including liquid fuels, chemicals.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BP Zhuhai Chemical has deferred the startup of its new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the startup of the plant has been postponed to 2015. It was earlier scheduled to start in Q4, 2014.

The reason for the delayed startup has been attributed to weak margins for PTA.

To be located in Zhuhai, southern Guangdong province of China, the plant will have a production capacity of 1.5 million mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, China based company Xianglu Petrochemical started up its new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in end-November 2013. Located in Xiamen, China, the plant has a production capacity of 1.5 million mt/year.

BP is one of the world's leading international oil and gas companies, providing its customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, retail services and petrochemicals products for everyday items.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian companies have been actively purchasing polyethylene (PE) in Uzbekistan for the last two weeks. Stronger demand was caused by a long outage at Stavrolen, Russia's second largest PE producer, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

Russian companies started purchasing actively high density polyethylene (HDPE) in Uzbekistan since last Friday, when preliminary dates of the shutdown at Stavrolen became known and the Russian market faced a major rise in HDPE prices. The purchasing also continued this week.

Expectedly, Russian companies have been actively buying blow moulding and injection moulding HDPE. Deals in the Uzbek Republican Commodity Exchange were done in the range of USD1,400-1,405/tonne FCA Kengsoy. There were also reports about purchasing of butene linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), however, purchasing quantities were significantly lower. Deals for LLDPE were done in the range of USD1,450-1,505/tonne FCA Kengsoy.

Contracts were also concluded by Kazakh companies, but their purchasing quantities were not comparable with the Russian ones. It should be noted that Kazanorgsintez, the key HDPE supplier to Kazakhstan, announced major cuts in export programs last week. As a consequence, Kazakh companies began to seek alternatives to Russian PE.

PE of Shurtan Gas Chemical Complex (Uzbekistan) is well known in the Russian market. Its prices were comparable to those in Asia and the Middle East (excluding delivery). However, the Uzbek material had a significant advantage over other materials because of the absence of import duty (9.1% for HDPE).
MRC