Orpic to restart PP plant in Oman afeter maintenance

MOSCOW (MRC) -- State-owned Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries (Orpic) is likely to restart its polypropylene (PP) plant following maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Oman informed that the plant is planned to be restarted in end-February 2015. The plant was shut in the last week of January 2015.

Located at Sohar in Oman, the plant has a production capacity of 340,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, in May 2014, ORPIC said it had awarded two contracts for construction of a USD3.6 billion plastics production complex, the Liwa Plastics Project. The plant will be built in Oman's northern industrial city of Sohar, next to ORPIC's oil refinery and petrochemical plants. The Liwa Plastics Project is due to be completed in 2018, doubling ORPIC's profitability by allowing it to extract more value from Omani crude oil and natural gas, the company said.

The project will boost ORPIC's annual production of polypropylene and polyethylene to 1.4 million tonnes, increasing Oman's exports, while additional production of 1 million tonnes of plastics will help to develop downstream industries within the country, ORPIC added.

ORPIC (Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company) is one of the leading companies in Oman and has two refineries in that country, in Sohar and Muscat. ORPIC is owned by the Government of the Sultanate of Oman and Oman Oil Company SAOC, the trading company created by the Government of the Sultanate of Oman for managing investments in the energy sector.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A federal judge on Thursday rejected BP Plc's attempt to reduce the maximum civil fine it could face over its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, reported Reuters.

US District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans agreed with the federal government that the maximum civil penalty that BP could face under the federal Clean Water Act is USD4,300 per barrel spilled, not the USD3,000 sought by BP.

The decision means BP could still face as much as USD13.7 billion of civil fines from the spill. Barbier has not decided how much BP should pay, and it is unclear when he will decide.

As MRC wrote before, BP plans to invest over USD200 million to upgrade its purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plants at Cooper River, South Carolina and Geel, Belgium. The investments will position these assets amongst the most efficient PTA manufacturing facilities in the world.

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. BP is the world's largest PTA producer with about 7,1 million tonnes of annual production.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- At the 20th Annual General Meeting of Clariant Ltd on March 31, 2015, Dr. Dolf Stockhausen will step down from Clariant's Board of Directors, reported the company on its site.

The Board of Directors will propose the election of Mrs. Susanne Wamsler as his successor and thus continuing the representation of the former family shareholders of Sud-Chemie AG in Clariant.

Dr. Dolf Stockhausen, a member of Clariant’s Board of Directors since 2011, has reached the statutory maximum age for board members of 70 and will therefore resign.

Dr. Stockhausen was a member of the Technology & Innovation Committee. Before joining Clariant’s Board in 2011, he was member of the Supervisory Board of Directors of Sud-Chemie AG, Munich.

Rudolf Wehrli, Chairman of the Board: "I'd like to sincerely thank Dolf Stockhausen in the name of the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee and all our employees for his valuable contribution in the last four years, particularly his significant input in the Technology & Innovation Committee and as a representative of the former Sud-Chemie shareholders. We see it as a strong commitment to Clariant that Susanne Wamsler has agreed to continue this representation, once elected by the shareholders on March 31."

Mrs. Susanne Wamsler, born in Frankfurt/Main in 1961 and now residing in Austria, has a US citizenship. Mrs. Wamsler has a degree in Political Economy from Princeton University, New Jersey, USA and a MBA from INSEAD. She held various positions with Deutsche Bank in Munich and New York and has worked successfully as an entrepreneur in different fields, including retail, real estate, telecommunications and wealth management.

As MRC wrote previously, in July 2014, CB&I and Clariant announced that their new Ziegler-Natta (ZN) polypropylene catalyst plant in Louisville, Kentucky, is on schedule to begin production in 2015.

Clariant AG is a Swiss chemical company and a world leader in the production of specialty chemicals for the textile, printing, mining and metallurgical industries. It is engaged in processing crude oil products in pigments, plastics and paints.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Milliken, leading supplier of polymer bound colorants and additives for the polyurethane Industry, has introduced a new reactive additive - AlphaSan AF VT, as per the company's press release.

AlphaSan AF VT is a new stable dispersion designed to provide cost-effective antimicrobial and antifungal performance in foam applications that require special protection, such as sponges, furniture, mattresses and pillows.

Milliken’s polymeric technologies are based on OH-terminated chains and are 100% reactive into the PU foam, elastomer or coating. Integrated within the final PU article during manufacturing, they avoid migration and loss of properties over time, and help to address the major issues of degradation and discoloration of PU articles due to light and heat sensitivity. The polymeric additives support polyol manufacturers and polyurethane producers in improving the emission profile of their products, meeting the most demanding test requirements for VOC and FOG such as VDA278.

As MRC informed earlier, in May 2014, US plastics additives supplier Milliken unveiled its plans to double production capacity for the "Millad" NX 8000 clarifying agent for polypropylene (PP) at its Allen facility in Blacksburg, South Carolina by 2015.

Milliken is an innovation company that has been exploring, discovering, and creating ways to enhance people’s lives since 1865. The company creates coatings, specialty chemicals, and advanced additive and colorant technologies that transform the way we experience products from automotive plastics to children's art supplies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Spanish oil and chemicals group Repsol has launched a major EUR60m plant upgrade and modernisation programme at its Puertollano Industrial complex in central southern Spain, said Europeanplasticsnews.

Projects, aimed at improving competitiveness and manufacturing efficiency, include adapting the production capacity of the olefins plant, increasing the output of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) resins and investment to raise propylene processing at the polypropylene unit.

Repsol intends to adjust monomer output at the olefins unit to meet the demand for added value products in a sustainable and efficient way. Investments will be made to improve energy efficiency in all the chemical plants.

The vast majority of the maintenance and modification work during the two month shutdown which began on 1 February will be carried out by Repsol group’s own subsidiaries.

EVA resin represents a specialised and key value added product area for Repsol which it only manufactures at the Puertollano complex. Work there, part of the group’s wider chemicals competitiveness plan, will see EVA production increase by 7%, it said.

Repsol originally announced it planned to increase its capacity of EVA copolymers including the upgrade of the five production units at the Puertollano complex. The main aim of the investment was to raise output of EVA copolymers with a high vinyl acetate content for hot melt adhesive applications.

As MRC wrote before, Repsol commercialized phthalate-free polypropylene (PP) block copolymers. Repsol now offers customers its new line of phthalate-free block copolymers which completes the commercial range of polypropylene grades based on this technology, which was first commercialized in 2009.

Repsol S.A is an integrated Spanish oil and gas company with operations in 28 countries. The bulk of its assets are located in Spain.
MRC