PP unit taken off-stream by Shenhua Ningxia

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group (SNCG), a subsidiary of Shenhua Group, one of the largest petrochemical producers in China, has shut one of its two polypropylene (PP) units for a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source informed that the company has halted operations at the unit on August 2, 2018. The unit is likely to restart in mid-August, 2018.

Located at Ningxia province of China, the PP plant comprising of two units have a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year each.

As MRC informed earlier, on March 29, 2018, SNCG restarted its HDPE/LLDPE swing plant following an unplanned outage. The plant was shut on March 1, 2018 on account of the fire occcured in ethylene tank on February 28, 2018. Located at Ningxia province of China, the HDPE/LLDPE swing plant has a production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.

Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co., Ltd. engages in coal mining and washing, coal deep processing, coal chemical industry, electric power, real estate, and other businesses.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Bharat Petroleum Corp will shut its 120,000 barrels-per-day (Mbpd) joint venture Bina refinery from mid-August for 45 days, a month ahead of the previous plan after a minor fire at the delayed coker, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to two sources.

The refiner has shut the delayed coker after a fire during the weekend and has decided to advance the September shutdown, one of the sources said. The sources did not wish to be identified as they are not authorized to speak to media.

During the 45-day shutdown, BPCL will carry out modifications at various units to raise the capacity of the plant to 156 Mbpd

BPCL’s head of refineries R. Ramachandran did not respond to calls from Reuters seeking comment.

The Bina refinery is operated by Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd (BORL), a 50-50 joint venture between Oman Oil Co and state-run BPCL.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - August contract price of propylene in Europe was agreed up by EUR8/tonne from the level in July.
However, most European producers announced the roll over of July export PP prices for supply to the CIS markets in August, according to ICIS-MRC Price Report.

Negotiations on August prices of European PP began last week. All market participants reported the rollover of July export prices for propylene polymers from all producers for August supplies.

Deals for August supplies of homopolymer PP were discussed in the range of EUR1,170-1,230/tonne FCA, which corresponds to the July deals.

Deals for copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) were done in the range of EUR1,240 -1,300/tonne FCA.
Some companies reported temporary export restrictions due to scheduled shutdowns of capacities.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian petrochemicals producer SIBUR is examining various options on capital markets, its chief executive told Reuters while declining to confirm concrete plans for an initial public offering (IPO).

Financial market sources told Reuters last month SIBUR was preparing an IPO that could raise USD2-USD3 billion and potentially take place by the end of the year.

"We are considering the different options on the capital markets as and when necessary. Now it’s to early to say about the concrete plans," Dmitry Konov said in an interview, without detailing the options.

Businessman Leonid Mikhelson, the head of and a major shareholder in Russia’s largest gas producer Novatek, owns 48.5 percent of Sibur, which is the largest petrochemical producer in Eastern Europe.

Mikhelson’s business partner Gennady Timchenko owns 17 percent, while China’s Sinopec and Silk Fund control 10 percent each.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters last month that Mikhelson might sell part of his stake, while Timchenko and another shareholder, Kirill Shamalov, both subjected to U.S. sanctions, were likely to retain their shares.

Shamalov owns 3.9 percent in Sibur.

Given most of Sibur’s revenue is made in U.S. dollars, Konov said the largest part of the firm’s debt should also be denominated in the currency.

He said capital spending was peaking in 2018 as construction works at a petrochemical complex in western Siberia, known as ZapSibNefteKhim, were expected to be completed in May 2019.

The installation and start-up works need to be done before ZapSibNefteKhim, which will be one of the world’s five biggest petrochemical plants, is due to come on stream, he added.

SIBUR is considering building a second big plant, known as the Amur Gas Chemical Complex (GCC), and may make a final decision at the end of 2019, Konov said.

According to the company’s website, Amur GCC will have a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes per year of ethylene, to be further transformed into polymer products.

SIBUR said last month investment in this plant could total up to USD8 billion and it was looking to share the cost with partners from Asia.

As MRC wrote before, on 17 February 2015, SIBUR launched construction of ZapSibNeftekhim,a facility for deep hydrocarbon to polyolefin processing. ZapSibNeftekhim's project is designed to operate a steam cracker (by Linde AG, Germany) with a capacity of 1.5 mtpa of ethylene, around 500 ktpa of propylene and 100 ktpa of butane-butylene fraction (BBF), along with units with a total capacity to produce 1.5 mtpa of various grades of polyethylene (by INEOS, UK) and a polypropylene unit of 500 ktpa (by LyondellBasell, Netherlands).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Vietnam’s Nghi Son oil refinery is seeking approval to export oil products as high inventories and pre-existing import contracts have limited domestic fuel demand, reported Reuters with reference to three industry sources.

If the approval is granted, this would be the first time Vietnam, a net importer of fuel, has allowed oil product exports produced domestically. The fuel shipments could also weigh on regional margins at a time when supplies are expected to start flowing from new projects in Malaysia and China.

Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical LLC, owner of the 200,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery, has ramped up output to more than 50 percent of capacity since starting up earlier this year and this has contributed to high fuel inventories, the sources said.

"We are seeking the approval from the Ministry of Industry and Trade to export our fuel products," one of the sources told Reuters, declining to be named as he was not authorized to speak with media.

"We have been selling part of our fuel output to the local market, but local traders and consumers are unable to absorb all of our products because they have already placed long-term orders with international suppliers, pending our official commercial production," the source said.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade did not immediately comment on the export request.

Vietnam’s imports of oil products in July fell to its lowest since January 2016, shipping data from Thomson Reuters Eikon showed.

Fuel inventories are high amid weak domestic sales and higher refining output, a Vietnam-based industry source said.

"Vietnam has a surplus of diesel and gasoline and sales are especially bad for gasoline with cargoes selling at a heavy discount," the source added.

Nghi Son, the country’s second refinery, is scheduled to reach full capacity by the fourth quarter of this year, the first source said.

The refinery sold its first cargoes of gasoline and diesel in May and exported its first petrochemical shipment in June.

Nghi Son and the 130,000-bpd Dung Quat refinery that started up production in 2009 are expected to jointly meet about 70 percent of the country’s refined oil product demand.

The plant is scheduled to import 6 million tonnes of crude oil and churn out 4 million tonnes of refined products this year, the company said in a statement late last month.

Nghi Son is located 260 km (160 miles) south of Hanoi.

The USD9 billion refinery is 35.1 percent owned by Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan Co, 35.1 percent by Kuwait Petroleum (IPO-KUWP.KW), 25.1 percent by PetroVietnam and 4.7 percent by Mitsui Chemicals Inc.

As MRC informed before, Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical started up on Feb. 28, 2018. The USD9 billion plant, co-owned by Kuwait Petroleum Europe BV and Japanese firms Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsui Chemicals , is designed to help Vietnam cope with a shortage of refined oil products.
MRC