Zhong Tian to restart PP plant in China

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Zhong Tian He Chuang, a joint venture of Sinopec and China Coal Energy Group, is in plans to brought on-stream its polypropylene (PP) plant following an unplanned outage, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China, informed that the company is likely to resume operations at the plant in end-June, 2019. The unit was shut on June 11, 2019 owing to technical issues.

Located at Ordos in Inner Mongolia, China, the plant has a production capacity of 350,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported before, in September 2018, Sinopec Corp joined a group planning to build an oil refinery in Alberta, an enterprise that would strengthen demand for the Canadian province's heavily discounted crude.

Sinopec Corp. is one of the largest scale integrated energy and chemical company with upstream, midstream and downstream operations. Its principal business includes: exploring, developing, producing and trading crude oil and natural gas; producing, storing, transporting and distributing and marketing petroleum products, petrochemical products, synthetic fiber, fertilizer and other chemical products. Its refining capacity and ethylene capacity rank No.2 and No.4 globally. Sinopec listed in Hong Kong, New York, London and Shanghai in August 2001. Sinopec Group, the parent company of Sinopec Corp., is ranked the 5th in Fortune Global 500 in 2012.
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MOSCOW MRC) -- French oil and gas major Total aims to complete repair works on the PLIF pipeline and restart its 102,000 barrels-per day Grandpuits refinery by mid-July, company documents show, reported Reuters.

Production was suspended at the refinery in February after a leak on the Ile-de-France Pipeline (PLIF) cut crude deliveries to the facility.

Total is carrying out maintenance works on the pipeline and cleanup operations on surrounding farms following the spill, while French authorities are analyzing the cause of the incident before any approval of the restart.

The company said in documents, presented during a public consultation with residents around the area of the spill, that initial investigations showed that the leak was caused by a degradation of the pipe.

It said defaults were found in several areas along the pipeline and all the repairs would be carried out and would need to be approved by various authorities before a restart which it estimated at around mid-July.

As MRC wrote earlier, in December 2017, Total inaugurated the new units at its Antwerp integrated refining & petrochemicals platform, which had progressively started up in the previous few months.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kuwait’s state refiner KNPC said seawater supply used to cool production units at its Mina Abdullah oil refinery was back to its natural levels after a leak earlier in the day, reported Reuters.

KNPC added in a tweet that work was still under way to restore the usual refining capacity rates of Mina Abdullah, which is expected to be in the next hours.

As MRC informed before, KNPC said on Wednesday that refining operations at its Mina Abdullah oil refinery had been affected by a cut in seawater supply, which is used to cool production units in the plant.

We also remind that in November 2018, Kuwait Petroleum Co prepared a study to transform its al-Zour refinery into a commercial one to increase its profitability.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Jamaica’s government said it already owns the 49% stake in a refinery on the island formerly held by Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, after the South American country’s opposition requested it not expropriate the shares, reported Reuters.

Jamaica’s Senate in February passed legislation clearing the way for the government to acquire the 49% stake in the 36,000 barrel-per-day Petrojam refinery that PDVSA acquired in 2006, part of late leftist President Hugo Chavez’s energy diplomacy efforts in the Caribbean.

But over the weekend, an ad-hoc PDVSA board appointed by opposition leader Juan Guaido sent Jamaica a letter asking that it halt the expropriation process. The other 51% of the shares were already owned by the Jamaican government.

Robert Nesta Morgan, parliamentary secretary for the office of Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness, said on Monday that the office received the letter and sent it to the attorney general’s office for "advice."

"The shares however are now owned by Jamaica," Morgan said in a statement, adding that the Jamaican government placed funds for compensation for the shares an escrow account, and there was a provision for parties to submit claims for the funds. He did not say how much money was placed in the account.

Guaido, the leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, in January invoked Venezuela’s constitution to assume an interim presidency, arguing President Nicolas Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate. He has since been recognized by dozens of countries as Venezuela’s rightful leader.

He appointed the ad-hoc board in part to protect PDVSA’s assets abroad. Maduro calls Guaido a puppet of the United States seeking to oust him in a coup, and remains in control of most state functions, including PDVSA’s operations within Venezuela.

Jose Ignacio Hernandez, Guaido’s overseas legal representative, said he and PDVSA ad-hoc board chair Luis Pacheco had "already requested that any compensation should be negotiated with the legitimate government."

We remind that, as MRC informed before, in late February 2019, Houston-based Citgo Petroleum slowed work on an overhaul of its 235 Mbpd Aruba refinery due to a lack of financing stemming from US sanctions on Venezuela's state-run PDVSA.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's Commerce Ministry said it is launching an anti-dumping investigation imports of a synthetic rubber product from the United States, South Korea and the European Union following a request from major petrochemical producers, reported Reuters.

The investigation into ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber (EPDM) should be finished by June 19, 2020, but can be extended further under special circumstances, the ministry said in a statement.

The trade measures were launched at the request of Jilin Petrochemical, a unit of China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), and Shanghai Sinopec Mitsui Elastomers Co. Ltd, the statement said. The companies are top producers of EPDM, a chemical product that is widely used for electric cables and tires. In 2018, the United States sold 105,797 tons of EPDM to China, while imports from South Korea were 53,413 tons. That same year the European Union exported 25,368 tons of the chemical product to China. The data for all three countries was in an application document submitted by the two Chinese companies published on the ministry's website.

Total shipments from the three countries and region account for almost 80% of China's overall EPDM imports, according to the document.

Export prices of EPDM from the US, South Korea and European Union were below the prices of the product in their domestic markets, and the dumping into China had caused substantial damage to the applicants, the document said.
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