Hanwha Total plans maintenance and capacity expansion at its No. 2 aromatics plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- South Korea-based Hanwha Total Petrochemical is likely to take its No. 2 Aromatics plant off-stream for maintenance and debottlenecking exercise, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that the company has planned to shut the plant in May-June 2017. Following the expansion at the aromatics plant, the PX capacity will be increased by 200,000 mt/year to 1.26 million mt/year and the benzene capacity will be increased by 50,000 mt/year to 470,000 mt/year.

Located at Daesan in South Korea, currently the plant has a PX capacity of 1.06 millimt/year and benzene capacity of 420,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed previously, Hanwha Total Petrochemical plans to expand the production capacity of its low density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) swing plant. Thus, the production capacity of the existing plant will be increase by 40,000 mt/year. Located at Daesan in South Korea, The swing plant has a total capacity of 240,000 mt/years.

Hanwha Group is one of the largest business conglomerate in South Korea. Founded in 1952 as Korea Explosives Inc., the group has grown into a large multi-profile business conglomerate, with diversified holdings stretching from explosives, their original business, to retail to financial services.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Imports of polypropylene (PP) into Belarus reached about 68,900 tonnes in first nine months of this year, up 14.7% year on year, compared to the same period of 2015. The greatest increase in imports occurred for propylene copolymers, according to MRC DataScope.

September PP imports into Belarus exceeded 8,200 tonnes against 8,100 tonnes a month earlier, the local companies reduced the volume of purchases of polypropylene copolymers, whereas homopolymer PP purchases increased. Total PP imports into the country were 68,900 tonnes in January - September, compared with 60,000 tonnes uear on year. The main increase in PP imports into the country accounted for injection moulding propylene copolymers.

Structure of PP supplies over the reported period looked as follows.

September imports of homopolymer PP into the Belarusian market increased to 5,600 tonnes, while a month earlier this figure was 5,100 tonnes. Local companies increased the volume of purchases of injection moulding homopolymer PP in Russia. Belarus's homopolymer PP imports increased to 46,800 tonnes in January-September 2016, against 43,900 tonnes year on year. The key suppliers of homopolymer PP were Russian producers, with their share in the total supply more than 90%.

September imports of propylene copolymers into Belarus reduced to 2,600 tonnes against 3,000 tonnes a month earlier, the local companies decreased procurement of injection moulding propylene copolymers in Russia. Total imports of propylene copolymers into Belarus exceeded 22,000 tonnes in January-September, compared with 16,100 tonnes year on year. The main suppliers of propylene copolymers were also producers from Russia with a share of over 85%.


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