Motiva Port Arthur refinery FCCU shut for mechanical repair

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Motiva Enterprises shut the gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) at its 603,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, refinery to fix a mechanical problem, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to sources familiar with plant operations.

The refinery's 18,000-bpd alkylation unit is also out of production while the FCCU repairs are underway, the sources said. There is no time frame for completion of the work.

As MRC informed before, in mid-July 2018, Motiva Enterprises completed repairs to the FCCU at its 603,000 barrel per day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas.

Besides, later, on 27 August 2018, Motiva Enterprises returned the gasoline-producing, alkylation and small coking units to normal operation at its 603,000 bpd Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, the nation’s largest. The 82,000 bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit (FCCU 3) and the 18,000-bpd alkylation units were knocked out of production on 26 August by a malfunction. The units began restarting at night on the same day.

Motiva is a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company.
MRC

India hopes to invite bids to fill south Indian oil storage

MOSCOW (MRC) - India hopes to invite bids in three to four months to fill a storage facility in southern India with 19 million barrels of oil, the chief executive of Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Ltd said, Reuters

The company will be inviting bids for crude for the Padur strategic petroleum reserve in the southern state of Karnataka which can hold 2.5 million tonnes of oil, Chief Executive H.P.S. Ahuja said.

The Padur site located is about 5 km (3 miles) from the coast and 40 km from Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd’s refinery.

India has strategic petroleum storage facilities at three locations in southern India with a combined capacity of 5.33 million tonnes.
MRC

Rosneft to invest 600 mln euros in German downstream sector over next five years

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft, which owns downstream assets in Germany including stakes in a number of oil refineries, plans to invest around EUR600 million (USD690 million) in the German downstream market, reported Reuters with reference to Russian government documents.

As MRC informed before, in January 2017, Russia's Rosneft and its shareholder BP completed dissolution of Ruhr Oel, their refining joint venture in Germany. Rosneft said with the restructuring it had embarked on developing its own business in Germany and had created a new subsidiary called Rosneft Deutschland.

The deal allowed Rosneft to gain control over more than 12 percent of Germany's oil refining market with annual refining capacity of 12.5 million tonnes. Rosneft also became a direct shareholder in the Bayernoil refinery, increasing its stake in it to 25 percent from 12.5 percent. It also raised it stake in the MiRO refinery to 24 percent from 12 percent and in the PCK refinery to 54.17 percent from 35.42 percent. For its part, BP took 100 percent control of the Gelsenkirchen refinery and DHC Solvent Chemie, a solvent production facility.

Rosneft became Russia's largest publicly traded oil company in March 2013 after the USD55 billion takeover of TNK-BP, which was Russia’s third-largest oil producer at the time.
MRC

PVC imports to Ukraine fell by 36% in January-September 2018

MOSCOW (MRC) - Imports of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) into Ukraine decreased by 36% in the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period in 2017 and reached about 53,200 tonnes. The main reason is the growth of own production volumes, according to MRC DataScope.

Last month's SPVC imports to the Ukrainian market dropped to 4,000 tonnes from 5,400 tonnes in August, with US resin accounting for the main decrease. Overall SPVC production reached 53,200 tonnes in January-September 2018, compared to 82,500 tonnes a year earlier.
Stable work of Karpatneftekhim after many years of shutdown helped reduce the dependence of the Ukrainian market on imports.

Structure of PVC imports into Ukraine over the reported period was as follows.

Last month's imports of US SPVC shrank to 1,600 tonnes from 2,700 tonnes in August. Thus, imports of US PVC totalled 33,000 tonnes in the first seven months of 2018, compared to 40,600 tonnes a year earlier. February-March accounted for the peak of imports.

September imports of European PVC into Ukraine decreased to 2,400 tonnes, compared with 2,700 tonnes in August. Total imports of European PVC into Ukraine were about 18,900 tonnes in the first nine months of the year, compared with 27,300 tonnes year on year.

Karpatneftekhim plans to shut down its PVC production for a long turnaround on 5 November. The shutdown will be quite long and will last approximately until 9 December. The plant's overall annual PVC production capacity is 300,000 tonnes.
MRC

Ufaorgsintez resumed PE production

MOSCOW (Market Report) -- Ufaorgsintez (petrochemical asset of Bashneft, which is part of Rosneft) has resumed its second low density polyethylene (LDPE) line after maintenance. The outage was quite long, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The plant's customers said Ufaorgsintez has begun a sequential resumption of production of the second LDPE line since the end of last week, after the shutdown for a scheduled turnaround. The process of resuming polyethylene (PE) production and reaching full capacity utilisation after the maintenance will take several days. The outage began on 19 September.

As reported earlier, the plant's first LDPE line (108 grade PE) had already resumed operations on 1 October, after the turnaround, the line was also idle for a period of 30 days. At the same time, the process of reaching the designed capacity utilisation took more than a week.

Ufaorgsintez's overall LDPE and propylene (PP) production capacities are about 90,000 and 120,000 tonnes per year, respectively.

As informed previously, Kazanorgsintez also intends to resume operations at its third LDPE line after a short outage by the end of this week. The plant's total annual capacity is 225,000 tonnes.

PJSC Ufaorgsintez produces phenol, acetone, synthetic ethylene-propylene rubber, high and low density polyethylene, polypropylene, over 30 types of petrochemical products and over 25 items of consumer products. Ufaorgsintez's net profit was Rb5.41 billion in 2017, down by 7% year on year.
MRC