Indonesian firm plans refinery in Nigeria

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PT Intim Perkasa Nigeria Ltd., a subsidiary of PT Intim Perkasa, Jakarta, has indicated interest in building a refinery in Nigeria, said Ogj.

The proposed 10,000-b/sd modular refinery would be built in Nigeria’s state of Akwa Ibom, Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) said.

While NNPC did not disclose further details of the planned refinery, the state-owned company did confirm the project comes as part of the Nigerian federal government’s initiative to expand the country’s existing refining capacity through the use of modularly constructed refineries.

NNPC and its greenfield refinery department, which specializes in new refinery projects, would provide professional support to the proposed project in line with the government’s policy on modular refinery construction, said Maikanti Baru, NNPC’s managing director.

"On our end, we have embarked on [an] ambitious plan to fast-track programs to restore our capacity utilization from 30% to a minimum of 90% in the next 24 months," Baru said. NNPC continues to work on securing financing as well as technical expertise from third parties to help bolster the 445,000-b/sd combined capacity of its three refineries, Baru added.

Given Nigeria’s projected population increase by 2025, the country will require more than 40 million l./day of fuel to meet domestic demand, about only 50% of which NNPC’s existing three refineries currently would be able to supply, Baru said.

Announcement of PT Intim Perkasa’s proposed modular refinery follows a series of recent initiatives by NNPC to aggressively advance its rehabilitation-and-expansion program at Nigeria’s state-owned refineries in order to meet the country’s domestic demand for fuels and curb its reliance on foreign imports.

As part of its proposed USD500-million rehabilitation program, NNPC in April 2016 launched a tender inviting bids from investors to become financial and technical joint venture partners for the phased modernization of its four refineries, which in addition to PHRC’s two refineries, include Warri Refining & Petrochemcial Co. Ltd.’s 125,000-b/sd refinery in Delta State and Kaduna Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd.’s 110,000-b/sd refinery in Kaduna State.

The overall program calls for restructuring the refineries to operate as incorporated JVs, with NNPC holding 51% interest and its potential partner 49% interest. If selected, partners will agree to fund, rehabilitate, and jointly operate the refineries with NNPC for a defined period, and in return, receive all offtake and marketing rights to refined products to be sold primarily in the Nigerian market until each partner recovers its investment.
MRC

Dairen Chemical to shut VAM unit in Singapore for maintenance

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dairen Chemical Corporation is likely to shut a vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) plant at Jurong Island, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Singapore informed that the company has scheduled maintenance at the unit in July 2017. The plant is expected to be shut in mid-July 2017 for a period of around 30 days.

Located in Jurong Island, Singapore, the plant has a production capacity of 350,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, Celanese Corporation, a global technology and specialty materials company, increased its list and off-list selling prices for vinyl actate monomer (VAM). The price increases below was effective April 1, 2017 or as contracts otherwise allow, and were incremental to any previously announced increases. Thus, VAM prices rose, as follows:

- by EUR100/mt - for Europe;
- by USD200/mt - for South America and Mexico;
- by USD0.05/lb - for USA and Canada;
- by USD200/mt - for Middle East and Africa.

Vinyl acetate is an organic compound. A colorless liquid with a pungent odor, it is the precursor to polyvinyl acetate, an important polymer in industry. It is a feedstock for the production of ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA).
MRC

Slavneft commissions new unit at Yaroslavl refinery

MOSCOW (MRC) -- OAO NGK Slavneft subsidiary JSC Slavneft-Yaroslavnefteorgsintez (Slavneft-Yanos) has started a new unit for production of group III base oils at its 15 million-tonne/year refinery in Yaroslavl, Russia, said OGJ.

Designed to produce four types of high-tech base oils, the new 100,000-tpy unit will receive feedstock from an associated hydrocracker for production of high-quality synthetic motor oils, two types of which have not previously been produced in Russia, Slavneft Yanos said.

Requiring a final investment of 5.5 billion rubles to complete, the new unit will enable the refinery to replace up to 40% of finished products currently imported into the domestic market, according to the operator.

Alongside commissioning of the group III base oils unit, other projects to be executed at the Yaroslavl refinery—Russia’s fourth largest—during 2017 involve ongoing implementation of an environment project to build a hydrogen sulfide utilization unit as well as projects to improve operating efficiency, including conversion of process furnaces to run on natural gas as well as replacement of Atmospheric Vacuum Distillation Unit 4’s furnace, according to PJSC Gazprom Neft, which jointly owns NGK Slavneft with 50-50 partner PJSC Rosneft Oil Co.

By yearend 2017, Slavneft Yanos also plans to complete a feasibility study and select technology for a proposed oil residue refining plant at the refinery, Gazprom Neft said in its 2016 annual report to investors.
MRC

June oil exports of Iraq near May level

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Iraq's oil exports from fields owned by the central government in Baghdad are at around 3.27 MMbpd so far in June, about the same level as in May, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi.

Total exports for all fields in Iraq, those of Baghdad and the Kurdish region in the north, have averaged 3.8 MMbpd so far in June, he told Reuters in the southern oil city of Basra. The country as a whole is producing about 4.315 MMbpd, he said.

Kurdish exports are running at about 520,000 bpd to 530,000 bpd so far this month, he said.

Iraq is in "quiet negotiations" with foreign oil companies operating in Iraq to amend their services contract, he said, declining to give more details.

The country wants to change the terms of the contracts it deems no longer in its favor after oil prices collapsed 3 yr ago, when they were in excess of USD100/bbl, to about USD45/bbl now.

Oil prices should start recovering by the end of July, to reach USD54 to USD56 a barrel by the end of the year, Luaibi said.

Iraq is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' second oil producer, after Saudi Arabia. The group in May rolled over an agreement to cut oil production with other exporting nations, until March, in order to support oil prices.

"Iraq supports the agreement that we reached; if developments happen contrary to OPEC's interests, the (OPEC) ministers will hold an extraordinary meeting," he said.

Iraq will continue developing its production capacity and will start executing a sea water injection project in its oilfields at the end of the year, even without an agreement with Exxon, he said.

"We are now in talks with ExxonMobil, if we don't reach an agreement, we have other options," he said.

As MRC informed previously, Iraq's oil ministry said in early May 2017 that it had started loading a tanker with 2 MMbbl of crude oil bound for Egypt, marking the first shipment under a bilateral agreement.
MRC

Braskem approves construction of new PP plant in the United States

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Braskem America Inc., Philadelphia, a subsidiary of Braskem SA, Sao Paulo, is investing $675 million to build what will become North America’s largest polypropylene (PP) production line at the company’s existing manufacturing site in La Porte, Tex., about 26 miles outside of Houston, said the company on its website.

Approved by the company’s board as of June 22, the PP unit will add another 450,000 tonnes/year of production capacity for homopolymers, random copolymers, impact copolymers, and reactor thermoplastic polyolefins to the La Porte plant’s current PP production capacity of 354,000 tpy, Braskem said.

The Delta production line comes as part of Braskem’s global growth strategy to help meet rising demand from customers both in the Americas and abroad by leveraging access to low-cost sources of feedstock from North American shale production as well as existing support infrastructure already in place to accommodate the expansion, the operator said.

With project engineering design already well under way and construction scheduled to begin by midsummer, Braskem said it expects to reach mechanical completion of the PP unit during first-quarter 2020.
Once completed, the Delta project will boost Braskem’s total US PP production capacity to 2.02 million tpy from a current output of 1.57 million tpy.

Braskem’s announcement of the planned PP expansion follows the late-2016 commissioning and early 2017 full startup of the company’s UTEC ultrahigh-molecular weight polyethylene production plant at the same La Porte site.

Braskem is the largest manufacturer of thermoplastic resins in the Americas, with an annual output of over 20 million metric tons, including the production of other basic chemical and petrochemical products, with an annual revenue of R54 billion. With the aim of improving the lives of people, creating sustainable solutions in chemistry and plastics, Braskem is present in over 70 countries, with roughly 8,000 members, and operates 41 industrial units located in Brazil, the United States, Germany, and Mexico - the latter in partnership with the Mexico-based company Idesa.
MRC