Naphtha cracker of Sichuan Petrochemical shut for unplanned outage

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sichuan Petrochemical (part of PetroChina) has undertaken an emergency shutdown at its naphtha cracker in Sichuan province of China, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has halted operations at the cracker on July 11, 2018 owing to a gas leak at its natural gas supply pipeline. Further details on duration of the outage could not be ascertained.

Located at Sichuan province of China, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 800,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, on June 24 2018, Sichuan Petrochemical restarted its polypropylene (PP) plant in Sichuan. The plant was shut for maintenance on April 8, 2018. Located at Sichuan province of China, the PP plant has a production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.

PetroChina Company Limited, is a Chinese oil and gas company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing. It is China's biggest oil producer.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petronas has shut its linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant for a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Malaysia informed that the company has undertaken a planned shutdown the plant over the weekend. The plant is slated to remain under maintenance for around 30 days.

Located at Kerteh in Terrenganu, Malaysia, the LLDPE plant comprising of two units have a production capacity of 120,000 mt/year each.

As MRC informed before, in early 2017, Malaysia's state oil firm Petroliam Nasional Berhad said its new USD27 billion refining and petrochemical complex project in the southeast Asian country is on track for start-up in 2019.

Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Wood has secured a new multi-million dollar contract with Hyundai Engineering to provide detailed engineering services and material supply for a steam methane reformer, part of a new Wood-licensed hydrogen production unit for the Melaka Refinery Diesel Euro 5 Project in Malaysia, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Wood will deploy its leading proprietary Terrace WallTM technology for hydrogen production as part of the contract, which will be delivered by the company’s process technology specialists based in Milan.

“Our extensive hydrogen technology expertise, global capabilities in the design and supply of fired heaters and our decades of experience in providing innovative modular solutions, positions Wood ideally to deliver this important contract for Hyundai Engineering," Bob MacDonald, CEO of Wood’s Specialist Technical Solutions business said.

As MRC reported earlier, in October 2017, Wood was awarded a new multi-million dollar contract by Total, supporting their Lindsey Oil Refinery located in North Killinghome, Lincolnshire, UK.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arlanxeo, a global leader in performance elastomers, has introduced its new thermoplastic vulcanisates (TPVs) that combine Keltan Eco ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber (EPDM) with green fillers, plasticizers and thermoplastics, resulting in EPDM products with up to 90% sustainable ingredients, as per the company's press release.

Keltan Eco is the world’s first EPDM rubber manufactured using bio-based ethylene extracted from sugarcane. Depending on the ethylene content of each rubber grade, the proportion of bio-based material ranges between 50% and 70%.

After evaluating the potential of creating sustainable alternatives for traditional polyolefin thermoplastics, plasticizer oils and (reinforcing) fillers, ARLANXEO now developed thermoset rubber compounds and thermoplastic vulcanisates based on Keltan Eco EPDM with the specific aim of maximizing sustainable content without compromising technical performance.

By combining Keltan Eco EPDM with green compounding ingredients the new EPDM compounds can also be used for dynamic and static automotive sealing applications with 85 to 90 weight percent of its composition having sustainable origin and a technical performance comparable to standard EPDM compounds.

Niels van der Aar, Business Development Manager EPDM/NBR at ARLANXEO said: "We can now identify potential partners to (co-)develop these innovative bio-TPVs. TPVs using Keltan Eco EPDM offer an excellent opportunity to replace regular thermoset rubber compounds and thermoplastic vulcanisates. These bio-based TPVs can make a significant contribution to the circular economy, scoring well in a cradle-to-cradle approach and helping to lower the carbon footprint."

Studies have shown that both the characteristics and technical performance of these Keltan Eco EPDM grades are identical to those of conventional EPDMs produced via Ziegler Natta catalysis and/or those from monomers based on crude oil.

Today, these new bio-based EPDM grades are commercially tested and used in applications, such as window profiles for busses and buildings, automotive extrusion profiles, O-rings, TPV over-moldings for automotive interior, pharma applications, sport surfaces, and, most recently, in the sponge rubber layer directly underneath the outer cover of the official soccer ball of the Soccer World Cup 2018.

As MRC wrote before, in March 2018, Arlanxeo signed an agreement with Saudi Aramco Products Trading company, headquartered in Dhahran, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, pertaining to the marketing and sales of EPDM rubber.

Arlanxeo was established in April 2016 as a joint venture of Lanxess - a world-leading specialty chemicals company based in Cologne, Germany - and Saudi Aramco - a major global energy and chemicals enterprise headquartered in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The two partners each hold a 50-percent interest in the joint venture. The business operations of Arlanxeo are assigned to the High Performance Elastomers and Tire & Specialty Rubbers business units.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF has further developed its range of hydrolysis-resistant thermoplastic polyesters, as per BASF.

The expanded range of Ultradur HR (HR= hydrolysis resistant) comprises Ultradur B4330 G6 HR High Speed, a particularly flowable and laser markable grade with 30% glass-fiber reinforcement, Ultradur® B4330 G10 HR, a highly reinforced grade with 50% glass fibers as well as Ultradur B4331 G6 HR, the next generation with optimized processing characteristics. Ultradur® B4331 G6 HR is available from now on as uncolored grade, in a black laser markable version, and in orange for components in electric cars.

With its Ultradur HR grades, BASF offers highly resistant PBT materials (PBT= polybutylene terephthalate) which are especially suitable for use in challenging environments. They thus enable a long service life and an excellent operational reliability of automotive components. The HR grades also have a considerably increased resistance to alkaline media which trigger stress corrosion cracking. This is also true of the new Ultradur B4331 G6 HR grade with considerably improved melt stability and flowability. In tests, Ultradur® B4331 G6 HR does not display any increase in viscosity even with long residence times and at high temperatures - the best basis for stable and easy processing. The material can also be colored in orange (RAL 2003) in order to produce high-voltage plug-in connectors for electric cars. Thanks to the unusually high tracking resistance for PBT, the plug-in connectors can be designed smaller and still withstand the higher voltages in electric vehicles. Thus savings on costs and component weight are possible.

The Ultradur 4330 G6 HR series which is already available with 30% glass-fiber reinforcement has been expanded to include the particularly flowable and laser-markable Ultradur® B4330 G6 HR High Speed bk15045. With this grade, thin-walled parts and components which show a high ratio of flow path to wall thickness can easily be produced.

The new Ultradur B4330 G10 HR is filled with 50% glass fibers. It can therefore be processed to components which are simultaneously exposed to moisture and high temperatures (160°C, short term up to 180°C) and keep a high stiffness, e.g. steering modules in the charge air duct. In the temperature range from 140°C to 180°C, the material reaches almost the property level of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), which is usually employed in this kind of applications.
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