Petrobras signs USD587 mln agreement to build gas processing unit

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA has signed a 1.95 billion real (USD587.2 million) contract to build a natural gas processing unit in Rio de Janeiro state, according to a securities filing on Thursday, reported Reuters.

Petrobras, as the company is known, will begin construction in the second half of 2018, with operations scheduled to begin in the second half of 2020. The unit, located in the city of Itaborai, will hold a capacity of up to 21 million square meters per day, the statement said.

As MRC informed earlier, Petrobras’s minority stakes in Braskem and Deten Quimica were excluded from Petrobras’s divestment program, according to a government decree published in Brazil’s Official Gazette in the second half of October 2017. The decree prevents Petrobras from immediately selling its minority stake in Braskem, which had been announced last year. A new decree will be required to release the stock sale.

Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated energy firm. Petrobras' activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related activities.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell, one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world, has announced it has named Jacinth Smiley its chief accounting officer, effective April 2, 2018, as per the company's press release.

Smiley will report to chief financial officer Thomas Aebischer.

Smiley joins LyondellBasell from General Electric Oil & Gas where she served as chief financial officer for the North America region. She worked in various finance and auditing roles for United Technologies Corporation and Arthur Andersen before joining General Electric in 1998, holding various technical and operationally oriented finance roles.

Smiley holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Connecticut.

As MRC wrote previously, in August 2016, LyondellBasell made the final investment decision to build a high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant on the US Gulf Coast. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1.1 billion pounds (500,000 metric tons) and will be the first commercial plant to employ LyondellBasell's new proprietary Hyperzone PE technology. The start-up of the new plant is scheduled for 2019.

LyondellBasell is one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world. Driven by its 13,000 employees around the globe, LyondellBasell produces materials and products that are key to advancing solutions to modern challenges like enhancing food safety through lightweight and flexible packaging, protecting the purity of water supplies through stronger and more versatile pipes, and improving the safety, comfort and fuel efficiency of many of the cars and trucks on the road. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mammoet has successfully completed the safe delivery of two heavy and oversized columns to Gazprom Neft Moscow Refinery for the construction of their new combined Euro+ facility in Moscow. Construction of the new complex will provide additional stability in fuel supplies for Moscow into the future, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

A vacuum column and an atmospheric distillation column will become part of the primary refining unit, which will be used for producing Euro-5 fuel components. Transporting the columns from their fabricators’ premises in Petrozavodsk and Volgodonsk presented a sizeable challenge. Mammoet planned and implemented a complex logistics chain involving multiple transport methods to deliver the columns safely and on time.

Each column was more than 50 meters long and weighed up to 700 tons. In order to facilitate transportation, the columns were delivered in several sections. Although the fabricators were located in opposite parts of Russia, the columns met similar obstacles on their routes, due to their unique dimensions and weight. The comprehensive approach that Mammoet developed included road transport up to the jetties in Petrozavodsk and Volgodonsk, water transport by barge and subsequent delivery to the Moscow Refinery site.

The vacuum column, which was 12 meters in diameter, was transported in seven sections of seven meters and demanded full road closures and execution at night. The atmospheric distillation column was transported in three sections, the maximum over 30 meters long. Along all land routes Mammoet specialists turned off, elevated, and dismantled power lines and urban lighting systems to provide a safe passage through. These were swiftly reinstalled once the road was cleared of vehicles. Mammoet carefully met all requirements of road safety for heavy and oversized loads transport.

From the jetties, each column was loaded onto a barge and delivered by river to the berth in Besedi, 17 kilometers from their final destination. They were unloaded by RoRo method, a ballasted roll-on, roll-off operation performed without cranes. From there they were transported to site by modular trailers.
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MOSCOW (MRC) At this spring’s Hispack 2018 trade fair in Spain, Milliken Chemical will be showcasing containers of NX UltraClear polypropylene made using its Millad NX 8000 clarifier, and highlighting why that material is the preferred solution for packaging, as per the company's press release.

The global supplier of specialty chemicals and additives has worked closely with major Spanish plastics packaging producer ITC Packaging and Belgium-based label solutions supplier Verstraete IML to create a new UltraClear container that both Milliken and ITC will be promoting at the show.

In addition to eye-popping clarity, containers made with NX UltraClear PP are lightweight, microwaveable, can be hot-filled, and are recyclable, Milliken notes.

"This solution comes in response to one of our customers’ greatest demands - to achieve more transparent packaging that allows for a clear display of the product with a minimum of visual interference," said Silvia Oliver, ITC’s quality responsible. "For this reason, we’ve teamed up with Verstraete IML and Milliken to produce an IML container with a high degree of transparency."

The aim to create this UltraClear container was driven by the desire to find a glass alternative for packaging a vegetable snack, a healthy product that requires a high degree of transparency that clearly transmits the freshness and naturalness of the product. The resulting product is part of Flexipack, ITC’s standard range of packaging.

"The features offered by NX UltraClear PP are very striking in terms of transparency," added Alexis Moreno, account manager in ITC’s sales department. "Any product that wants to use its appearance as a sales tool for differentiation will find an ideal companion in this solution."

The material’s transparency was complemented by use of Verstraete IML’s SuperClear IML label, which further enhances the product’s marketing potential, Moreno noted.

SuperClear IML offers several benefits, said Benedict Adins, Verstraete IML’s regional sales manager for Southern Europe, including: highly transparent, see-through areas that create a “no-label” look; great flexibility with no changeover costs or delay; a technique that allows a huge number of different IML looks to be created with the same keyline; and the possibility of a "floating label" look (with the label being printed only on the upper part of the packaging).

In a competitive retail marketplace, when consumers have the option to choose from among thousands of competitive products, attractive packaging can play a vital role. Allowing the consumer to clearly see the product he or she is buying only enhances the shelf appeal. That’s why ITC Packaging chose to work with Milliken and Verstraete IML to deliver the clearly best end result.

As MRC informed previously, in February 2015, Milliken, leading supplier of polymer bound colorants and additives for the polyurethane Industry, introduced a new reactive additive - AlphaSan AF VT. AlphaSan AF VT is a new stable dispersion designed to provide cost-effective antimicrobial and antifungal performance in foam applications that require special protection, such as sponges, furniture, mattresses and pillows.

Milliken is an innovation company that has been exploring, discovering, and creating ways to enhance people’s lives since 1865. The company creates coatings, specialty chemicals, and advanced additive and colorant technologies that transform the way we experience products from automotive plastics to children's art supplies.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, has announced completion of testing on ingredients in its MEVOPUR and REMAFIN-EP product ranges in order to bring them into full compliance with USP <661.1>, said the producer in its press release.

The new standard for pharmaceutical packaging and drug delivery devices doesn’t take effect until May 2020, when it will impact all current and future drugs on the US market. Clariant is completing the testing process now to help customers "future-proof" packaging launched in the interim and, in addition, to offer data to support the ICH-Q3D guidelines for risk assessment of elemental impurities in drugs.

Experts from Clariant’s Healthcare Polymer Solutions are on hand on Stand E14 at Pharmapack 2018 to review the implications of the new regulation and consult with customers about packaging /drug delivery device design strategies. The Pharmapack 2018 even is being held in Hall 7.1 at Porte De Versailles, Paris, France, from Feb. 6-8.

"The ICH-Q3D guideline strengthens the risk assessment process by evaluating not only the pharmaceuticals themselves, but also the packaging to ensure it is not the source of elemental impurities in drugs," says Steve Duckworth, Global Head of Healthcare Polymer Solutions. "As part of Clariant’s commitment to the continued availability of ‘controlled, consistent, and compliant’ packaging ingredients through our MEVOPUR and REMAFIN-EP product ranges, we initiated the required testing in 2017 and completed it early this year."

During the transitional period, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows the industry to make new filings under the older <661> or the new <661.1> standard, but in 2020, all existing and new drug/package combinations will need to be tested and compliant to the new standard. By completing its testing early, Clariant is helping customers get out in front of these regulatory changes and avoid the potential for last-minute problems with <661.1> testing as the 2020 deadline approaches, Duckworth explains.

He adds that compliance to <661.1> represents a major change, involving not only a significant modernization of test methods, but also a more robust risk assessment process: "The major consequence of this change is that in 2020, the ‘food contact statements’ that have long supported the use of many materials in drug packaging will be deemed ‘insufficient’ to support their future use. Thereafter, packaging materials for any category of drugs, from solid oral dose to higher risk ophthalmic solutions, must be supported by data from in-vitro tests specified in USP<661.1> (e.g. for extractable metals) and USP<87> for cytotoxicity."

Though all manufacturers must prove the compliance of their finished pharmaceutical packages and drug delivery devices to the new standard, Duckworth says that customers who select MEVOPUR and REMAFIN-EP products for use in those packages or drug delivery devices can develop and test their products with an added measure of confidence and avoid the costs of testing and submission twice: "If our own tests have already indicated that there is a low risk of an ingredient in the packaging interacting with the drug, then the customer can proceed with additional tests, such as required leachable and shelf life stability testing, with a greater confidence that the package concept is going to get through these tougher regulations."

Longer term, Duckworth notes that the production controls in Clariant’s ISO:13485 medical manufacturing plants help to ensure that MEVOPUR and REMAFIN-EP materials and ingredients remain free of change and thus supporting continuous compliance worldwide.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in March 2017, Clariant announced that it had been awarded a contract by Dongguan Grand Resource Science & Technology Co. Ltd. to develop a new propane dehydrogenation unit in cooperation with CB&I. The project includes the license and engineering design of the unit, which is to be built in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, China.

Clariant AG is a Swiss chemical company and a world leader in the production of specialty chemicals for the textile, printing, mining and metallurgical industries. It is engaged in processing crude oil products in pigments, plastics and paints.
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