Motiva preliminarily picked to run Curacao refinery: report

MOSCOW MRC) -- Motiva Enterprises has preliminarily been chosen by the government of Curacao to operate the 335,000-barrel-per-day Isla refinery, replacing Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA, reported Reuers with reference to local media.

The refinery has been idle since May when a legal dispute between PDVSA and US producer ConocoPhillips forced its closure.

PDVSA’s contract to run the facility, which is crucial for its storage, refining and shipping operations, will expire at the end of 2019. The government of the Caribbean island is seeking a company willing to handle it in the long run and probably also to finish the lease term next year.

Motiva, based in Houston, was chosen by Curacao from a list of interested companies as the "preferred bidder" to run the refinery from 2020 or possibly before, if a separate agreement is reached, according to the Antilliaans Dagblad newspaper.

Motiva is a US subsidiary of Saudi energy giant Aramco and a regular buyer of Venezuelan crude.

The Curacao refinery on Saturday confirmed a company was chosen but said it would not disclose the name of the new operator until a final agreement is signed.

Motiva declined to comment in a statement.

A memorandum of understanding between the chosen operator and the government is expected to be signed in mid-January, the manager of the refinery, Marcelino de Lannoy, told Reuters.

Lannoy, who is temporarily replacing Isla’s managing director, Roderick Van Kwartel, amid accusations of corruption linked to the bidding process to choose the new operator, also said PDVSA has agreed to cooperate in any transition.

PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Curacao Refinery Utilities (CUR), the company that provides water and electricity to the facility, is expected to resume supply this month to prepare the refinery for its restart.

Earlier this year, Motiva said it was weighing an expansion of its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery. But in June that plan was scrapped over what sources said were worries about concentrating too much production in a single, hurricane-prone location.

Instead, Motiva was "actively exploring a number of opportunities and locations" to boost its North American refining capacity to as much as 1.5 million barrels per day, a Motiva spokeswoman said.

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

Neste CEO to address business impact of low-carbon society

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The IRPC EurAsia advisory board is proud to name Mr. Peter Vanacker, President and CEO of Neste, as the conference's opening day keynote speaker, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

With an address entitled Transforming Business for a Low-carbon Society, Vanacker will tackle one of the most pressing long-term challenges facing the international downstream industry.

Mr. Vanacker joined Neste in 2018, having previously served as President and Managing Director of the CABB Group, CEO and Managing Director of Treofan, and a Member of the Executive Board at Bayer MaterialScience (Covestro).

Following the conference and exhibition will be an exclusive tour of Neste’s Kilpilahti refinery, the largest refinery in Scandinavia with five production lines including renewable diesel production and a modern SDA production line to utilize base oil.
MRC

BASF to expand capacity for methane sulfonic acid at its Ludwigshafen site

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF intends to expand the production capacity for methane sulfonic acid (MSA) at its Ludwigshafen site by around 65 percent and increase the global capacity to 50,000 metric tons per year, as per the company's press-release.

With the investment the company further strengthens its position as the leading global producer of MSA. The volumes from the additional capacity are expected to be available late in 2021 for customers in all regions.

"The demand for MSA increased strongly across industries. This expansion will allow us to support the rapid growth of our customers, especially in Asia. Beyond the increase in Ludwigshafen, we evaluate investment options outside of Europe to continuously expand our MSA capacities," says Martin Widmann, Global Strategic Marketing and Development, Care Chemicals division at BASF. "We focus our extensive know-how and highly efficient manufacturing processes on our customers’ needs to enhance their applications’ performance, sustainability and efficacy."

Methane sulfonic acid is a strong organic acid used in numerous applications ranging from chemical and biofuel synthesis to industrial cleaning and metal surface treatment in the electronics industry. The expansion is in line with the trend for top-performance and at the same time environmentally friendly technologies in various industries. BASF’s proprietary process enables the production of Lutropur® MSA – a high-purity methane sulfonic acid. Lutropur MSA is a sustainable alternative to other acids such as sulfuric, phosphoric or acetic acid. As part of the natural sulfur cycle MSA is readily biodegradable. Further benefits in practical applications come, for example, from its nonoxidizing nature, the high solubility of its salts and the absence of color and odor.
MRC

TNSC acquires portion of Lindes HyCO business

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation (TNSC) has reached an agreement with Linde Gas North America LLC (Linde America) to acquire a portion of its HyCO business and related assets in the US through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc., as per Gasworld.

Through the USD413,070,000 acquisition, Matheson will acquire the hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO) Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) plants in five locations, pipelines and remote supervision systems.

HyCO represents hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO) which are separated from natural gas and other gases through Stem Methane Reforming (SMR) and other equipment. The HyCO business provides large-scale supply of H2 and CO to customers in oil refining and petrochemical industries by way of a pipeline.

In its aim to expand in the gas technology field, TNSC has decided on a full-scale entry in the HyCO business for the perspective of strengthening its proposal capabilities with enchantments to its product line-up.

The new acquisition realises TNSC’s endeavour meaning a steady generation of earning from on-site supply of H2 and CO can be expected from the agreement, as well as the acquisition of resources which will further facilitate operation of HyCO business and the strengthening of the ability to offer proposals that will capture demand for new on-site projects in the US (for example petroleum refining and petrochemicals).

In June 2017, Linde Aktiengesellshaft (Linde AG) agreed to a merger with Praxair which was approved in October 2018 by the US Federal Trade Commission with the condition that some of Linde AG’s businesses including a portion of HyCO businesses in the US be transferred to a third party.

The merger resulted in Matheson concluding a contract with Linde America acquiring its HyCO business and its related assets at five locations in the US.

MRC

The Compound Company acquires controlling stake in Transmare Compounding BV

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Compound Company, based in Enschede, The Netherlands, and new management, have acquired a controlling stake in Transmare Compounding BV, Roermond, The Netherlands, as of December 14th 2018, as per the company's press release.

Current shareholder Henk-Jan Aarsen will retain a minority stake.

Under the agreement, Transmare Compounding will continue to operate as a stand-alone company with The Compound Company offering technical and financial support. The companies will work closely to achieve synergies through strengthened product development, coordinated sales & marketing and leveraging operational synergies.

"Over the last couple of weeks, we have developed plans with the Transmare team to make the transition as smooth as possible and start an improvement program focused on product quality, customer service and flexibility," said Stijn van den Brekel, the new general manager of Transmare Compounding BV. "Together with my fellow director Thomas van het Kaar, we are looking forward to joining the Transmare team and jointly working on implementing these plans and improving our total offering for both our existing and new customers." The new management has 30+ years’ experience in the plastic industry, production and management.

Simon Put, managing director of The Compound Company commented, "We welcome the Transmare team to the group. After our expansion into South East Asia and the construction of an additional compounding plant in Enschede, this is yet another building block in our growth strategy. It strengthens our position as a specialty compounder in Europe, adding new products, extra capabilities and valuable people with scarce compounding skills to the group. The combination will provide critical mass to our EcoForte portfolio of specialty compounds and provide extra capacity for our custom compounding partners. Given current market demands, we can put the spare capacity of Transmare to work immediately."

Peter Wolf, former Transmare Group CEO and shareholder, has taken over the Group’s trading activities, Transmare Distribution, that will continue to cooperate with Transmare Compounding as a partner.
MRC