Fire breaks out in oil refinery on Jurong Island; no casualties reported

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A fire broke out in an oil refinery on Jurong Island on Tuesday (June 13) morning, although no one was hurt in the incident, said Straitstimes.

The blaze occurred in one of the facility's three crude distillation units, a spokesman for the Singapore Refining Company (SRC), which owns the refinery, told The Straits Times.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) first said it received reports of a fire on the premises of Merlimau Road at 9.50am and dispatched resources to the scene.

In a subsequent update, SCDF said the fire alarm was sounded and SRC's in-house emergency response team was immediately activated. Water monitors and several large capacity fire extinguishers were deployed to mitigate the blaze.

The fire was put out at 11.10am by SCDF and the response team using ground monitors and several handheld jets.

Foaming operations were also carried out, SCDF added. No casualties were reported.

It was written earlier, in 2016, Amec Foster Wheeler was awarded a contract by Singapore Refining Company (SRC), a joint venture between Singapore Petroleum Company and Chevron, to undertake Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) and Detailed Engineering Services for upgrade of its Crude and Vacuum heater efficiency which includes revamp of burners, air preheater and a common new chimney stack, in Jurong Island, Singapore.

Singapore Refining Company Private Limited (SRC) is a joint venture between Singapore Petroleum Company Limited on one part and Chevron (namely, Chevron Singapore Pte. Ltd. & Chevron Trading Pte. Ltd.) on the other. Located on Jurong Island, SRC operates a refinery that is capable of processing 290,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- June 10, 2017, in Astana, Minister of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kanat Bozumbayev met with Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih, said Government of Kazakhstan.

The ministerial meeting was held within the framework of the agreements reached between the Heads of State of Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia on October 24-25, 2016 in Riyadh.

Within the framework of the meeting, a bilateral memorandum of cooperation was signed between LLP United Chemical Company (operator of the state program for accelerated industrial and innovative development in the chemical industry) and SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corporation), a public joint-stock company from Saudi Arabia specializing in chemical and metallurgical industry, one of the five largest petrochemical companies in the world.

This document is fundamental in studying the feasibility of implementing projects for the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and methanol in Kazakhstan. The Memorandum was signed by Zhenis Osserbay, Chairman of the Board of United Chemical Company LLP and Yousef Al-Benyan, CEO of SABIC.

As Minister of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kanat Bozumbayev noted during the meeting: "The signing of this memorandum is a good example of strengthening cooperation in the oil and gas sector. There is a certainty that the experience of SABIC will help prepare an optimally effective model for implementing oil and gas chemical projects in view of world trends".

These projects are planned to be implemented on the territory of the petrochemical zone in Atyrau region, which provides for a special legal regime, which presupposes tax, customs and other benefits.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The June contract price of ethylene in Europe was agreed down by EUR35/tonne from May. But European polyethylene (PE) producers reduced their export prices more significantly that the amount of reduction of ethylene prices, according to ICIS-MRC Price Report.

Negotiations over export prices of European PE to be shipped to the CIS markets began on Monday. Many negotiators said most European producers had reduced substantially their export PE prices. In some cases, the price decrease reached EUR70/tonne from May.

Deals for June shipments of high density polyethylene (HDPE) were discussed in the range of EUR1,050-1,120/tonne FCA, whereas last month's deals were done in the range of EUR1,100-1,190/tonne FCA. Negotiations over black pipe grade PE 100 was held in the range of EUR1,280- 1,320/tonne FCA. Some companies were slow to negotiate their deals, hoping to receive lower prices.

Deals for June shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) were discussed in the range EUR1,110-1,210/tonne FCA, whereas last month's deals were done in the range of EUR1,150-1,250/tonne FCA.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The state-owned Indian Oil Corp Ltd (IOCL), India's largest refiner and oil marketing company, likely to take its purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant off-stream for maintenance, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in the India informed that the company is expected to shut the plant in early July 2017. The plant is likely to remain shut for around one month.

Located in Panipat, India, the PTA plant has a production capacity of 550,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported before, IOCL is also in plans to undertake maintenance at its polypropylene (PP) plant at Panipat refinery in northern India in early-July 2017. It is likely to remain under maintenance turnaround for around 4 weeks.Located at Panipat in the northern Indian state of Haryana, the PP plant comprising two units has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year each.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited, or IndianOil, is an Indian state-owned oil and gas corporation with its headquarters in New Delhi, India.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Cosmo Films, a global leader in films for packaging, labeling and lamination applications would now offer an extended range of direct thermal printable (DTP) products, as per the company's press release.

This would include standard DTP films, top coated DTP films, high temperatures DTP films and DTP paper.Direct thermal printing is generally used for tagging and labelling applications where elaborate printing is not required and printing is done only for critical information like barcodes. Direct Thermal printing does not require an ink ribbon for printing, and the image/impression formation takes place simply when coated substrate comes in contact with the print head of the thermal printer.

The company has just launched a BOPP based top coated direct thermal printable film which is water and solvent resistant and can be used for tough weather labelling such as deep freeze product labelling, industrial bar coding, track & trace and logistics. The film can endure temperatures of -20 to 70 degrees. A high temperature resistance variety with endurance level as high as 130 degrees is also being offered. The product has been developed keeping meat packaging & carcass tagging applications in mind requiring relatively higher temperature process parameters.

The company would now also offer direct thermal printable paper in both top coated and uncoated varieties. Top coated variety would be well suited for applications requiring water resistance.

Commenting on the development, Mr. Kapil Anand, Head - Speciality Labeling Exports, Cosmo Films said, "Direct thermal printing has been gaining significant prominence in recent times due to its ease of use, low total applied cost and optimum image density and we are glad that we can offer both paper and filmic solutions for a wide range of applications now being printed by this printing technology."

As MRC wrote before, Cosmo Films Limited installed a new 10.4 mtr BOPP line in early 2017, which increased the company’s annual BOPP production capacity from 140k to 200k MT.

Established in 1981, Cosmo Films Limited today is a global leader in speciality films for packaging, lamination and labeling applications. Its films offerings include biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) films, cast polypropylene (CPP) films and soon to be offered biaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate (BOPET) films. Today, the company is the largest exporter of BOPP films from India and is also the largest producer of thermal laminating films in the world with plant cum distribution centres in the U.S, Korea & Japan and global channel partners in more than seventy countries.
MRC