Reactor trips at LyondellBasell VAM unit in La Porte, Texas

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US olefins producer LyondellBasell has experienced a reactor trip at a vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) unit in La Porte, Texas, as per Plastemart.

The reactor tripped after an oxygen analyzer reading saw a spike, the company said in a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

The La Porte facility has a VAM capacity of 385,000 m tpa. The site also includes acetic acid capacity of 500,000 m tpa and a 780,000 m tpa methanol unit.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As MRC informed earlier, in late July 2016, LyondellBasell embarked a 45-day planned turnaround at its 300,000 mt/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) facility in Bayport, Texas. LyondellBasell's turnaround marks the first in a series of planned maintenance outages among US Gulf Coast MEG producers.

LyondellBasell is one of the world's largest plastics, chemical and refining companies and a member of the S&P 500. LyondellBasell manufactures products at 57 sites in 18 countries. LyondellBasell products and technologies are used to make items that improve the quality of life for people around the world including packaging, electronics, automotive parts, home furnishings, construction materials and biofuels. Hostacom and Hifax are trademarks owned by LyondellBasell. The manufacturing facilities in India are owned and operated by Basell Polyolefins India Pvt. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of LyondellBasell.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Spanish engineering and construction firm Tecnicas Reunidas has won a contract from Saudi Aramco to build a clean fuels unit at its Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia, said Hydroxarbonprocessing.

One of the sources told Reuters the contract was worth about USD1.8 billion while another said it was USD1.5 billion. The project was initially estimated to cost more than USD2 billion.

"They signed an LOI (letter of intent) already and they are expected to sign the contract after the final approval of Saudi Aramco," said a source familiar with the matter.

The Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) magazine reported that the Spanish firm had won the contract. Major oil companies and Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest exporter of crude oil, has been paring back spending to cope with the lower oil prices.

However, Aramco revived bidding for a cleaner fuels project at its biggest oil refinery in Ras Tanura following speculation that low crude prices would force the project's cancellation.

The scheme has had at least three previous rounds of bidding without a contract being awarded. Saudi Aramco has been revamping its refineries to produce cleaner fuels, a trend at Middle Eastern refineries to target export markets with stricter environmental requirements.

The Ras Tanura clean fuels project, including a naphtha hydrotreater, was to be part of a second phase of upgrades and was originally due to go on stream in 2016.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell and Varo Energy are in advanced talks on the sale of Shell's 37.5% stake in the 220,000 barrels per day refinery in Schwedt, Germany, said Reuters.

The companies did not disclose the value of the deal.

Varo Energy, a joint venture between the world's biggest oil trader Vitol and private equity firm Carlyle Group, owns a refinery in Cressier in Switzerland and the Bayernoil refinery in Germany.

Shell is in the midst of a USD30 billion asset disposal program following February's USD54 billion acquisition of BG Group.

As MRC informed earlier, Technip and Chemetry have signed an exclusive cooperation agreement for the licensing and engineering of Chemetry’s eShuttle technology for the production of ethylene dichloride (EDC).

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) -- Solvay has signed a definitive agreement to sell its 58.77%t stake in its Thai subsidiary Vinythai PCL to Japanese company AGC Asahi Glass (AGC), thereby exiting its Asian polyvinyl chloride (PVC) activities, said the producer on its site.

The transaction is based on a total enterprise value of 16.5 billion Thai Baht (EUR435 million), representing a multiple of 8x mid-cycle EBITDA. Completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including antitrust approvals, and is expected in the first half of 2017.

"This agreement follows Solvay’s earlier sale of the European PVC business and the upcoming completion of the divestment of its Brazilian PVC activities. These transactions represent a significant milestone in the Group’s transformation towards a multi-specialty chemical group," said Vincent De Cuyper, member of Solvay’s Executive Committee.

As MRC informed before, in mid-Decmeber 2016, Solvay obtained clearance from the Brazilian antitrust authority, CADE, for the agreed sale of its 70.59% stake in Solvay Indupa to chemical group Unipar Carbocloro. Completion of the transaction, at a total enterprise value of USD 202.2 million as announced in May, is expected to take place in the next weeks. Solvay Indupa produces PVC and caustic soda in Brazil and Argentina.

Earlier, in 2014, Argentina's stock regulator rejected as inadequate an offer from Brazil's Braskem, Latin America's largest petrochemical company, to buy the roughly 30% of the shares of plastic maker Solvay Indupa that are publicly traded. Solvay Indupa is the Argentine-Brazilian unit of Belgium's Solvay, which owns 70.59% of the company.

Created in 1948, PVC and caustic soda producer Solvay Indupa has 956 employees and two production sites in Brazil and Argentina. Indupa, with a manufacturing capacity of more than 500,000 tpa of PVC, runs facilities at Santo Andre, Brazil, and Bahia Blanca, Argentina.

Solvay, with a market share 27%, is the second largest PVC manufacturer in Europe, after Kerling with 29% of the market. Solvay is headquartered in Brussels with about 30,900 employees spread across 53 countries. It generated pro forma net sales of EUR12.4 bn in 2015, with 90% made from activities where it ranks among the world’s top 3 players.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Thailand's integrated oil refiner IRPC Pcl plans to invest USD280 million next year with an aim to expand the production capacity of a petrochemical product and boost its long-term earnings growth, a top executive said, reported Reuters.

IRPC will increase its polypropylene production capacity by 63%, or 300,000 t from current levels, to 775,000 t by the middle of next year, President and CEO Sukrit Surabotsopon told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

Once the expansion is completed, Sukrit said IRPC will be Southeast Asia's largest producer of polypropylene (PP) - a synthetic resin which is a polymer of propylene, used chiefly for films, fibers, or molding materials.

As MRC informed previously, IRPC restarted its PP unit following a maintenance turnaround at the end of the first week of Decmeber. The plant was shut for a planned maintenance in mid-November 2016. Located in Rayong province of Thailand, the PP unit has a production capacity of 175,000 mt/year. The company also operates two more PP units at Rayong province, having a production capacity of 150,000 mt/year each.

IRPC, part of state-controlled PTT Pcl, Thailand's largest energy firm.

PTT Global Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a year.
MRC