PetroRabigh plans to restart its cracker in early December

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PetroRabigh, a joint venture of Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical, is likely to brought on-stream its cracker following a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Saudi Arabia informed that the company is expected to resume operations at the cracker in early-December 2016. The cracker was shut on November 10, 2016.

Located in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 1.6 million mt/year.

As MRC informed before, in early April 2016, Petro Rabigh received ownership of the Rabigh Phase II project from Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical, major shareholders in Petro Rabigh, and will now integrate the project into Petro Rabigh's existing refining and petrochemical complex in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia.

Besides, in November 2016, Petro Rabigh again postponed completion of its Phase II expansion project in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia, increasing the project's cost to SAR 34 billion, Petro Rabigh said in a statement to Tadawul (Saudi Stock Exchange).

The project involves expansion of ethane production capacity to 1.6 million t/y from 1.3 million t/y, as well as units to produce ethylene propylene rubber, thermoplastic polyolefins, methyl methacrylate, polymethyl methacrylate, low-density polyethylene/ethylene vinyl acetate, paraxylene/benzene, cumene and phenol/acetate.

Phase II was expected to be completed in September 2016, but is being postponed by at least six months to the second quarter of 2017, due to "construction market challenges". The ethane cracker expansion portion of Rabigh Phase II began full operations on 19 Apr. 2016. Cumene and phenol units have also begun operations,

PetroRabigh, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical, has an annual output capacity of 18 million tonnes of refined products and 2.4 million tonnes of petrochemicals. Thus, the complex currently has a cracker to produce 1.3-million t/y of ethylene and 900,000 t/y of propylene, as well as downstream production of polyethylene, polypropylene, propylene oxide, ethylene glycol and butene-1.
MRC

МОSCOW (MRC) -- Shell and Cosan have reached an agreement to strengthen the Raizen JV in Brazil, through a change in its contractual structure, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The partners have agreed to remove the mutual time-bound buyout options included in the original JV, signed in June 2011, and in doing so have transformed Raizen from a temporary to a permanent JV.

"Low-carbon, sustainable biofuels play an important role today and will be required long term for heavy duty and long distance transport," John Abbott, Shell’s Downstream Director, said. "We are pleased with Raizen’s strong performance."

Raizen is the world’s largest individual producer of sugar cane, producing more than 4 MMt of sugar, more than two billion liters of ethanol and 2.2 gigawatt hours of cogenerated energy in 2015. It also operates a network of more than 5,800 Shell-branded service stations in the country.

As MRC informed earlier, hell Nanhai B.V. (Shell) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s (CNOOC) 50:50 JV has officially assumed ownership of CNOOC’s ongoing project to build an ethylene cracker and several derivatives units, after receiving all the necessary government approvals.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BP must pay more than USD68 million to the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), a UK court has ruled, in a case stemming from the surprise closure of Morocco's Samir refinery in 2015, said Reuters.

The British energy company sold a cargo of Russian Urals crude to Samir in August 2014 which was not paid for and NBAD took on 95 percent of that debt.

The London High Court ruled that BP did not have the right to pass on the debt. It said the contract between BP and Samir stipulated that there could be no assignment of obligations or rights without reasonable consent and that Samir's consent had not been obtained.

It said NBAD was entitled to claim from BP some USD68.9 million plus interest that Samir failed to pay the bank. BP declined to comment on the judgement.

Trading and oil companies such as Glencore, Vitol and BB Energy are collectively owed around USD1 billion by Samir.

Efforts to restart the refinery have so far failed. Liquidator Mohamed el-Krimi said on Monday that he would only consider bids to buy the Samir refinery that included a production restart.

The 200,000 bpd plant was shut in August 2015 due to financial difficulties after the government said Samir owed over USD1.3 billion in taxes.

Industry sources have criticized that move, noting it reduces the plant's value and necessitates a restart that could take several months.

After Samir failed to buy crude in the market earlier this year, a processing agreement, whereby traders provide crude in exchange for the refined output, was considered as a way to pay back money owed. Those negotiations have also failed to produce a deal.

As MRC informed earlier, BP reported a near halving in third-quarter earnings on Tuesday and cut its 2016 investment plans by another USD1 billion as weak oil prices cut into profits yet tighter spending helped the British oil major still beat analysts' estimates. BP, which plans to lay off around 7,000 workers by the end of next year, said it was expecting further charges related to redundancies and other restructuring measures next year, adding to the USD2.1 billion in charges incurred since the end of 2014.

BP is a leading producer of oil and gas and produces enough energy annually to light nearly the entire country for a year. Employing about 17,000 people across the country, BP supports more than 170,000 additional jobs through all of its business activities.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- At the industrial site of Ufa Oil Refinery -- a branch of Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim -- the retrofitting of rector sector of catalytic cracking vacuum gasoil hydrofining plant was completed aimed at expansion of Euro-5 high-octane petrols production from dark petroleum oils, said the company on its site.

The retrofitting contributed to 4.7% growth of the plant average daily output by volumes of vacuum gasoil treatment and 11.8% growth in terms of stable petrol production. Additionally, due to the retrofitting the average life of the catalyst used in the process was doubled -- from 2 to 4 years.

The project was implemented during the plant scheduled overhaul 8 days ahead of the schedule.

As MRC informed earlier, oil major Lukoil has told the Russian government it wants to buy mid-sized rival Bashneft, with the state still studying whether to sell a controlling or minority stake in the firm to plug a budget deficit.

Bashneft is the parent company of the Bashkir fuel and energy complex. Bashneft Group includes three oil refineries - Ufaneftekhim, JSC Ufa Refinery, Novoil and petrochemical plant Ufaorgsintez. The installed capacity is 24.1 m tonnes/year of hydrocarbons. Ufaorgsintez is a major producer of phenol, acetone, low density polyethylene (LDPE) and polypropylene (PP). The company specializes in the production of oil in Bashkiria, Western Siberia and the Orenburg region. It supplies oil to the domestic market and for export.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Materials manufacturer Covestro has developed reliable UV protection for plastic composites, reported GV.

With their combination of high strength and low weight, composites can be put to diverse uses in a variety of applications and industries, where they can even replace conventional materials such as metal and wood. At the K 2016 plastics trade fair, Covestro has unveiled innovative and sustainable solutions based on fibre-reinforced polyurethanes and polycarbonates.

According to the company, to fully exploit the advantages of composites, the fibres must be combined with the best-possible matrix material. Polyurethanes are steadily gaining ground in this segment thanks to their outstanding properties, says Covestro.

At K 2016, the company has introduced a new polyurethane matrix for composites with very good UV, weathering and chemical resistance. Named Desmocomp, it is formulated from aliphatic isocyanates and ideally suited to outdoor applications. It eliminates the need for any additional surface protection, such as coatings, UV absorbers, and UV-stable mats or films, says the company.

The new matrix material can be processed very cost-efficiently, thanks above all to its long pot life and rapid curing. Like other polyurethane materials, Desmocomp also displays high reactivity, variable viscosity and outstanding bonding strength. It wets a composite’s glass fibres very effectively, lending it high and lasting strength. The anti-graffiti properties and good flame retardance of the composites round out the profile.

All of these advantages together open up promising opportunities for the use of Desmocomp in a variety of outdoor applications, says the company. One current example is parts for lightweight commercial vehicles. Covestro’s development partner, Sortimo International GmbH, recently presented composite parts made with the new matrix material at the IAA commercial vehicle show in Hanover, Germany.

We remind that, as MRC informed before, Covestro is moving forward with a repurposing of its production operations in Brunsbuttel, Germany. In early July 2016, the Board of Management officially approved an expansion of production capacity for the foam component MDI (feedstock for polyurethane) at the site.

With 2015 sales of EUR 12.1 billion, Covestro is among the world’s largest polymer companies. Business activities are focused on the manufacture of high-tech polymer materials and the development of innovative solutions for products used in many areas of daily life. The main segments served are the automotive, electrical and electronics, construction and the sports and leisure industries. Covestro, formerly Bayer MaterialScience, has 30 production sites around the globe and as of the end of the first quarter 2016 employed approximately 15,700 people (full-time equivalents).