GE awards INEOS for water technology at Scottish petrochemical plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- GE Water & Process Technologies has honored INEOS with its prestigious Ecomagination Leadership and Return on Environment (ROE) awards to recognize the petrochemical manufacturer for its noteworthy reductions in water usage and associated costs savings on its KG ethylene plant at its petrochemical complex in Grangemouth, Scotland, according for Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Faced with a water cooling system that was limited to four cycles due to calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate scaling, the KG plant team collaborated with GE Water & Process Technologies to address these issues and thereby increase the cycles of their cooling water. Specifically, Water & Process Technologies provided the asset with its GenGard corrosion treatment chemistry, TrueSense cooling water technology and InSight asset performance management (APM) system.

By implementing this solution, INEOS would have the ability to potentially increase the water cycles in the cooling tower system to eight cycles, which would conserve approximately 100 MMgal of water per year and thereby deliver significant savings.

GE’s InSight APM system and service reliability center allowed for continuous monitoring of key water parameters between service visits, which ensured that any issue that could increase the scaling due to increased cycles were addressed quickly and efficiently.

The GE Water & Process Technologies Ecomagination Leadership award recognizes the achievements of industrial users for striking a positive balance between today's economic, industrial and sustainability challenges. It is given to the top customers in environmental and economic performance. The business’ prestigious ROE award honors significant environmental (water, energy, resource) accomplishments.

INEOS is a global manufacturer of petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and oil products. It comprises 18 businesses each with a major chemical company heritage. Its production network spans 67 sites in 16 countries throughout the world. Grangemouth represents INEOS’ largest manufacturing site by volume of products. It is home to Scotland’s only crude oil refinery and produces the bulk of fuels used in Scotland.

Its Grangemouth petrochemical plant makes around 1 MMtpy of product, which is used as the building blocks in the manufacturing of household items. These include synthetic ethanol, ethylene, propylene and polymers (polyethylene and polypropylene). INEOS’ products are used extensively in the petrochemical industry and transformed into bottles and pipes, cabling and insulation and food packaging and are used in the pharmaceutical industry.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in September 2016, INEOS Enterprises completed the sale of INEOS Styrenics, its Expandable Polystyrene Business (EPS), to Synthos S.A. for EUR80m. The sale of the Styrenics business includes manufacturing sites at Wingles and Ribecourt in Northern France and Breda in the Netherlands. The three production sites are supported by its technology Centre in Breda, including a research laboratory and pilot plant facilities. Customer Service, Logistics and Finance groups are also located in Breda.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) — Saudi Arabia will supply full contracted volumes of crude oil to at least five north Asian term buyers in October, while a sixth regional refiner was notified of cuts to its October Arab Extra Light supplies, said Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The October allocations are in contrast to the steep cuts in the September allotments and reaffirms Saudi Arabia’s desire to maintain its Asian market share. Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest crude exporter.

Saudi Arabia is likely taking advantage of the lower refinery run rates and ample crude inventories in the United States in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, to redirect the allocation cuts from Asia to the United States, a trader who specializes in Middle East crude supplies said.

"Saudi allocations are all about the math. They can cut US allocations and supply that to Asia," the trader added. A source from the sixth Asian refiner said that its October supply of Arab Extra Light crude was cut by 10%, likely because of repair work in September at Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oilfield, which produces the grade.

Saudi Arabia plans to cut crude oil allocations to its customers worldwide in October by 350,000 bpd, an industry source familiar with Saudi oil policy told Reuters on Thursday, in line with Saudi Arabia’s commitments to a supply reduction pact by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers.

In comparison, Saudi Arabia pledged last month to cut its September crude oil worldwide allocations by 520,000 bpd.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SABIC continued its global expansion with the inauguration of a new polypropylene (PP) pilot plant in Geleen, the Netherlands, and the announcement of a new investment in a state-of-the-art PP extrusion facility to be built at the same location, said Yourpetrochemicalnews.

Both facilities, dedicated to innovation in SABIC® PP products, support SABIC’s 2025 strategy to be the preferred world leader in chemicals by delivering ‘Chemistry that Matters™’. An opening ceremony for the pilot plant and a customer event was presided over by Yousef Al-Benyan, SABIC Vice Chairman and CEO, and the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, Henk Kamp.

"In times of change, organizations have two options: drive or be driven," said Mr Al-Benyan during the opening ceremony. "At SABIC, we have a long-term vision to drive sustainable success for our customers and we work constantly to create and deliver innovative solutions that answer their challenges. It’s about innovative thinking, extending and improving our portfolio, and – as we are showing here today – investing in technology and innovation."

In line with SABIC’s strategic commitment to customer-driven innovation, the new PP pilot plant, located at the SABIC’s Global Technology Center for Europe in Geleen, will design next-generation PP materials. It is already on-stream using gas-phase polymerization technology. The plant will enable accelerated development and commercialization of highly innovative material solutions that meet the growing needs of various industries, including automotive, health- and personal care, appliances and advanced packaging.

Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh, Executive Vice President of Petrochemicals at SABIC, was also present at the event. "These facilities are great establishments for our company and for the benefit of the world at large, thanks to the dedication, skills, and hard work of our employees,” he said. “They will support our company’s strategy to develop new sustainable material solutions that help our customers achieve their goals, as we work with them in ever-closer collaboration."

Across industry, Al-Fageeh explained, there is an increasing need for creative solutions that are sustainable, cost-efficient and compliant with ever-tougher regulations. At the same time, they must provide increased consumer safety and convenience, while delivering improved functionality. "At SABIC, we are playing our part by relentlessly pursuing cutting-edge technologies, both in production and new material development. We are very happy to have so many customers here today to celebrate this inauguration."

Al-Fageeh described how innovation and collaboration are the key enablers of SABIC’s 2025 strategy. "We look at specific challenges and market needs through the lens of collaboration and innovation to create products and solutions that lead to business growth internally and at our customers,” he said. “Our new investments will open up opportunities to create smarter, more efficient, higher performing products that can generate sustainable solutions for long-term success."

The new facility will serve to develop grades with improved balance in stiffness and impact resistance, flow properties and other properties specific to target applications. SABIC plans to concentrate on development of impact grades of polypropylene, as well as random copolymers and homopolymers. It will also carry out experiments on advanced catalysts.

The Geleen pilot plant is part of SABIC’s network of 21 Global Technology Centers, located strategically around the world. It will support strategic innovation initiatives for SABIC’s comprehensive polypropylene product line to address continuously evolving market needs.

The highly automated, cutting-edge PP extrusion line is expected to be in operation in the fourth quarter of 2017 on SABIC’s Geleen site. It will answer customers’ needs for advanced materials that can support them developing the next generation lightweight applications in industries such as packaging, appliances, automotive, and healthcare.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Eni signed cooperation agreement today in order to cooperate in oil & gas exploration and production, gas and LNG value chain opportunities, trading and logistics opportunities, refining and petrochemicals, said the company on its web-site.

The partnership will regard both China and overseas activities. The signing took place in Rome at Eni's headquarters during a meeting between the Chairman of CNPC, Wang Yilin, and Eni's CEO, Claudio Descalzi.

The meeting was a chance to further strengthen the relationship between the two companies and was an opportunity to discuss ongoing joint projects as well as future opportunities between CNPC and Eni across the energy value chain.

Eni is an Italian multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Rome. It has operations in in 79 countries, and is currently Italy's largest industrial company with a market capitalization of EUR68 billion (USD 90 billion), as of August 14, 2013. The Italian government owns a 30.3% golden share in the company, 3.93% held through the state Treasury and 26.37% held through the Cassa depositi e prestiti. Another 39.40% of the shares are held by BNP Paribas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A new commercial crude oil reserve base built by China’s Sinopec Corp in northern Chinese port of Tianjin received its first oil shipment on Wednesday, reported Reuters with reference to the state refiner.

The new site consists of 12 tanks each sized 100,000 cm, totaling about 7.56 MMbbl.

This is the fourth commercial crude storage site Sinopec has started since 2012 in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster region. The first three sites are in Caofeidian and Tianjin.

As MRC informed before, China's Sinopec group, parent of Sinopec Corp, will invest USD29.05 billion to upgrade four refining bases between 2016 and 2020 to produce higher-quality fuels. Sinopec's upgrades come as China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer, is embracing more stringent fuel standards in its battle against pollution and suffering an overall glut in refining capacity. After the upgrades, the total refining capacity of the four refining sites will reach 130 MMtpy, or 2.6 MMbpd, while ethylene capacity will reach 9 MMtpy, Sinopec said.

Sinopec Corp. is one of the largest scale integrated energy and chemical company with upstream, midstream and downstream operations. Its principal business includes: exploring, developing, producing and trading crude oil and natural gas; producing, storing, transporting and distributing and marketing petroleum products, petrochemical products, synthetic fiber, fertilizer and other chemical products. Its refining capacity and ethylene capacity rank No.2 and No.4 globally. Sinopec listed in Hong Kong, New York, London and Shanghai in August 2001. Sinopec Group, the parent company of Sinopec Corp., is ranked the 5th in Fortune Global 500 in 2012.
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