Praxair starts up VPSA plants in South Korean petchem complex

MOSCOW (MRC) — Praxair, Inc. announced it has started up three new vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) plants at the Daesan petrochemical complex located on the west coast of the Korean peninsula, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Praxair will start up a fourth VPSA plant in early 2018. Under a long-term contract, the VPSA plants will supply a combined 750 tpd of oxygen to Hyundai Oilbank, one of the leading refinery companies in Asia with a capacity of 520,000 bpd of crude oil and other feedstock.

Hyundai has produced gasoline and propylene in South Korea for more than 50 yr. The oxygen is being used in their residue fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC) process.

Praxair was the first to develop VPSA technology and is the leader in VPSA applications for oxygen production. With more than 250 VPSA plants globally, over the last 25 yr the company has built a strong track record of supply reliability and technical expertise.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical, part of Sinopec Group, has brought on-stream a polypropylene (PP) plant following a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has completed maintenance at its plant on October 29, 2017. The plant was taken off-line on October 13, 2017.

Located at Shanghai in China, the plant comprising of two units have a production capacity of 100,000 mt/year each.

As MRC informed before, on 10 May 2017, Shanghai Petrochemical restarted its two PP units following a maintenance turnaround. The units were under maintenance from April 20, 2017. Located in Shanghai, China, the units have a production capacity of 100,000 mt/year each.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group's key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) — The owner of top South Korean oil refiner SK Energy said on Wednesday that it would spend about USD897.8 MM to build a new desulfurization unit by 2020, part of a push to churn out cleaner shipping fuels, said Reuters.

Under the plan, a 40,000-bpd Vacuum Residue Desulfurization (VRDS) will be added to an 840,000-bpd refinery in the southeastern city of Ulsan, South Korea's SK Innovation said in a stock exchange filing.

The move comes as tougher international regulations on sulfur emissions are due to take effect from 2020, the company said in a separate statement.

The firm added that the unit would also help in producing high value-added products including diesel and naphtha by processing cheaper residual fuel oil.

SK Energy has a total refining capacity of 1.115 MMbpd—a combined 840,000 bpd at five crude distillation units (CDUs) in Ulsan and 275,000 bpd at two CDUs in the western city of Incheon.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) — Russia’s Surgutneftegaz is offering up to 3.1 MMt of ultra-low sulfur diesel at a tender for delivery in January-June 2018 from the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk, industry sources told Reuters .

The company is offering between 350,000 t and 540,000 t of 10 ppm diesel per month produced at its Kirishi refinery. The tender closes on Nov. 8.

Previously, Surgutneftegaz has sold Vitol up to 2.5 MMt of ultra-low sulfur diesel via a tender for loadings in July-December from Primorsk.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Negotiations over November shipments of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) began among Russian producers and converters on 27 October. All producers announced a Rb6,000-7,000/tonne price reduction from October, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

In August-October, high seasonal demand for finished products and scheduled shutdown for maintenance amid insignificant imports allowed Russian producers to achieve an overall increase of Rb7,000-8,000/tonne in domestic PVC prices. By November, the situation had changed radically both with demand for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and with prices in foreign markets, particularly, in China. Therefore, Russian producers were forced to significantly reduce their PVC prices for November shipments.

Insignificant quantities of imported material and scheduled outages at several Russian plants forced many converters to purchase additional volumes of resin in August-September, which partly caused a deficit and a dynamic price increase. Demand for finished products from PVC remained strong in October, but many converters had already reduced their purchasing, realizing that will be price cuts in November.

Kaustik, Volgagrad was the last producer that shut down its PVC production for a turnaround, the outage was quite long and took place from 26 September to 18 October. But the outage at Volgograd plant virtually did not affect the market balance, on the contrary, there was even a surplus of material in the resin with K=67 segment.

In the second half of October, Chinese producers significantly decreased their export prices, the reduction in prices of acetylene PVC averaged USD100/tonne compared to the level of the second half of September. Some Russian companies began to contract resin for deliveries from China.

The danger of an influx of imports from China and weaker demand from the domestic market made some Russian producers reduce their PVC prices in the second half of October. Some producers cut them by an average of Rb3,000/tonne.

The further reduction in demand under the pressure of seasonal factors and danger of the influx of Chinese acetylene PVC forced producers to substantially reduce their November contract prices. Many converters announced a reduction in this month's processing volumes of resin, some companies were slow to conclude deals, expecting further price cuts in the second half of the month.

Overall, deals for November shipments were done in the range of Rb66,000-68,500/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT, for K=65/67 and for quantities up to 500 tonnes. Negotiations over prices for resin with K=70 started from Rb66,500/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT, and higher.
MRC