Dhunseri Petrochem shut PET plan in Panipat for maintenance

MOSCOW (MRC) -- IVL Dhunseri Petrochem Industries has undertaken an unplanned outage at its polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plant at Panipat, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in India informed that the company has halted operations at the plant in mid-April, 2019 owing to a shortage of feedstock. Further details on duration of the shutdown could not be ascertained.

Located at Panipat in India, the PET plant has a production capacity of 216,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, in June 2018, Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL), a global chemical producer, announced that it has entered into a joint venture agreement with Dhunseri Petrochem Ltd. (Dhunseri) to acquire its Egyptian Indian Polyester Company S.A.E. (EIPET) PET facility located in Ain Sokhna free trade zone, North West of the Gulf of Suez in Egypt.

Dhunseri Petrochem Ltd. is one of the largest producers of PET resin in India and among the top ten in the world. The company manufactures the finest bottle grade PET resin, for packaging of drinking water, carbonated soft drinks, edible oil, pharmaceuticals and many more. Dhunseri Petrochem Limited is the Petrochem division of Dhunseri Petrochem & Tea Limited.
MRC

ExxonMobil and employees donate nearly USD13 M to Texas colleges and universities

MOSCOW (MRC) --ExxonMobil and its XTO Energy subsidiary employees, retirees, directors and surviving spouses contributed nearly USD5.9 million to 80 Texas colleges and universities, the company said, as per Finance.

Those individual donations were matched by almost USD7.1 million in unrestricted grants from the ExxonMobil Foundation as part of the foundation’s 2018 Educational Matching Gift Program.

ExxonMobil’s program matches individual donations to accredited colleges and universities in the United States. The American Indian College Fund, Hispanic Scholarship Fund and United Negro College Fund are also eligible to receive donations as part of the matching gift program. While ExxonMobil’s grants are unrestricted, colleges and universities are encouraged to designate a portion of the funds they receive to math and science programs supporting student engagement.

"Supporting higher education, particularly in the areas of engineering, math and science, is critical in improving individual livelihoods as well as driving broader societal growth,” said Kevin Murphy, president of the ExxonMobil Foundation. “We’ve long supported programs that improve educational outcomes and provide teachers with the tools they need to inspire our next generation of leaders and innovators."

More than 800 accredited colleges and universities in the United States will receive a total of USD50.4 million as part of the ExxonMobil Foundation’s 2018 Educational Matching Gift Program. Nearly 4,000 ExxonMobil employees and retirees contributed more than USD17 million to institutions of higher education in 2018, which will be matched with over USD32 million in unrestricted grants from the foundation. ExxonMobil has donated nearly USD700 million to American institutions of higher learning since the program began.

ExxonMobil and the ExxonMobil Foundation also support programs that encourage students, particularly women and minorities, toward careers in science, technology, engineering and math, as well as teacher training initiatives.

As MRC informed earlier, Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) said Monday it has signed a sales and purchase agreement with Zhejiang Provincial Energy Group for liquefied natural gas or LNG supply, noting that the agreement demonstrates it's commitment to help meet China's natural gas demand.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC

Saudi Aramco bets on oil supply to Europe, trading expansion

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Aramco aims to boost its oil supply to Europe by 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) within the next two years as it expands its trading operations there with an office opening this summer in London, reported Reuters with reference to a senior company executive.

Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer, is expanding its downstream, or refining and marketing, footprint globally by signing new deals and boosting the capacity of its plants to secure new markets for its crude.

The company’s trading arm has been focusing on a new processing arrangement in which it would supply European markets with both crude oil and products.

Aramco is looking to finalize deals in the next two years through swapping mainly Saudi crude with oil products to supply customers in Europe and the Mediterranean, Abdulaziz al-Judaimi, Aramco’s senior vice president for downstream, told Reuters.

"I am going to bet on Europe... We believe that Europe is a market that we are going to stay in for a long time," Judaimi said in a telephone interview this week.

"The whole idea is we supply crude, and we offtake refined products to supply markets like Italy, the Balkans, as well as Cyprus ... In Europe, having a virtual dedicated outlet and processing agreement is really the right winning strategy."

Aramco currently has more than 3 million barrels a month of oil supply and product swap arrangements in Europe, he said. The company has deals with Poland’s PKN Orlen, Greece’s Motor Oil Hellas and Egypt’s Midore.

"We are looking to expand the 3 million barrels to almost 10 million barrels in a month, within the next two years. This means we have almost created a 300,000 bpd refining capacity in Europe," Judaimi said.

The company has invested in its storage capacity in Egypt and the Dutch port of Rotterdam. About 60% of the capacity of the SUMED storage pipeline in Egypt is for Saudi crude, used by Aramco to reach its customers in Europe, he said.

The Rotterdam terminal now holds more than 6 million barrels of oil, he said.

Aramco will also continue to invest in Greece, Judaimi said.

The priority is to supply refiners with Saudi crude to lock in their capacity, but non-Saudi crude can also be supplied through spot trading.

"This is a win-win strategy because it helps the refiner ... and for us it is to place crude oil in the European refining assets," he said.

"The refining sector in Europe requires such deals and we are taking advantage of available capacity."

The state oil giant’s trading arm, Aramco Trading Co (ATC), plans to open an office in London in July, Judaimi said. ATC has been expanding its overseas operations and increasingly competing with global trading houses in new markets.

ATC logged record trading volumes in crude and refined products of 4.5 million bpd in the first quarter, and is on track to reach its target of 6 million bpd by the end of next year, Judaimi said, close to Vitol’s trading level.

"We started seven years back on trading activities and our growth story is quite a successful story, we started with 300,000 bpd and we are now at about 4.5 million bpd."

ATC was set up in 2012 initially to market refined products, base oils and bulk petrochemicals, but has since expanded into crude trading.

The trading sector faces increased rivalry between national oil companies (NOCs), international oil firms and Swiss merchants.

NOCs have cheap feedstock and strength in refining, allowing them to compete aggressively with oil majors and especially traders that lack their own production.

Aramco, the world’s top oil producer and exporter, aims to become the largest integrated energy firm, with plans to expand refining operations and petrochemical output. It pumps around 10 million bpd of crude, of which it exports about 7 million bpd.

The company plans to raise its refining capacity - inside Saudi Arabia and abroad - to 8-10 million bpd, from around 5 million bpd now. Aramco is expanding its refining business at home as well as in new markets, particularly in Asia.

Judaimi said Aramco’s new, 400,000-bpd refinery in the southwestern Saudi province of Jizan was expected to start later this year.

Aramco will make an investment decision to go with the front-end engineering for its refining joint venture with Chinese defense conglomerate Norinco by the third quarter of this year, he said.

"China focus is important; China now imports a lot of crude oil, and we believe that could be a market that is growing and strong as well."

He said Aramco was looking at multiple downstream opportunities in India.

As MRC wrote before, in October 2018, State oil giant Saudi Aramco signed an agreement to invest in a refinery-petrochemical project in eastern China, part of its strategy to expand in downstream operations globallys The memorandum of understanding between the company and Zhejiang province included plans to invest in a new refinery and co-operate in crude oil supply, storage and trading, according to details released by the Zhoushan government after a signing ceremony in the city south of Shanghai.

Saudi Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a Saudi Arabian national oil and natural gas company based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco"s value has been estimated at up to USD10 trillion in the Financial Times, making it the world"s most valuable company. Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 260 billion barrels, and largest daily oil production.
MRC

Russia oil contamination impacts 250,000 bpd of European refinery runs

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The impact on European refinery throughput in the second quarter of 2019 from contaminated crude on the Druzhba pipeline is seen at roughly 250,000 barrels per day, under 2% of the continent’s product demand, reported Reuters with reference to the International Energy Agency.

The Czech Republic released about 1.5 million barrels of crude from its emergency stocks, or 10 days of the country’s average refining throughput, the IEA said on Wednesday.

Although Hungary announced on April 30 that it would make 3 million barrels of crude stocks available, not all of this has been taken up, the Paris-based IEA said in a report.

No stock release has been reported for Slovakia.

"We assume a total of 100,000 bpd impact on refinery throughput in these three countries over May-June, but expect operations to ramp up from July, even if this implies further crude stock draws," the agency said.

Crude oil stocks in the three countries were at 27 million barrels at the end of February, or around nine months of forward cover.

Poland released 5.9 million barrels of crude stocks, while Germany had not released any emergency stocks as of May 14, the IEA said.

In 2018, Poland received about 300,000 bpd through the pipeline for its Gdansk and Plock refineries, while Germany’s Leuna and Schwedt refineries received 440,000 bpd.

As MRC informed earlier, Belarus state oil firm Belneftekhim said in a statement on Saturday that not enough clean oil is available for the Novopolotsk refinery to work at its optimal capacity, after contaminated oil was received via the Russian Druzhba pipeline.
MRC

Trinseo evaluating strategic alternatives for Germany polycarbonate unit

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Trinseo, a global materials solutions provider and manufacturer of plastics, latex binders and synthetic rubber, today announced that the Company is evaluating strategic alternatives for its polycarbonate (PC) resin activities, as per the company's press release.

The Company has not set a timeline for this evaluation process.

Trinseo is fully committed to continue serving its customers in specialty polycarbonate applications, as well as polycarbonate compounds and blends - for industries including automotive, medical devices, durable goods, and consumer electronics. The Company’s Performance Plastics business segment continues to be a focus area for growth.

As MRC wrote before, Trinseo and its affiliate companies in Europe has announced a price increase for all polystyrene (PS). Effective May 1, 2019, or as existing contract terms allow, the contract and spot prices for the products listed below increased as follows:

- STYRON general purpose polystyrene grades (GPPS) - by EUR50 per metric ton;
- STYRON and STYRON A-Tech and STYRON X- Tech and STYRON C- Tech high impact polystyrene grades (HIPS) -by EUR50 per metric ton.

Trinseo is a global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber. Trinseo's technology is used by customers in industries such as home appliances, automotive, building & construction, carpet, consumer electronics, consumer goods, electrical & lighting, medical, packaging, paper & paperboard, rubber goods and tires. Formerly known as Styron, Trinseo completed its renaming process in 1Q 2015. Trinseo had approximately USD4.6 billion in net sales in 2018, with 16 manufacturing sites around the world, and approximately 2,500 employees.
MRC