Lotte Titan resumes production at No. 1 LLDPE unit in Cilegon

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PT Lotte Titan Nusantara Indonesia has restarted its No. 1 Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE) unit at Cilegon, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Indonesia informed that the company has resumed operations at the unit early last week. The unit was shut owing to shortage of feedstock in early-November, 2019.

Located in Cilegon, Indonesia, the No. 1 unit plant has a production capacity of 125,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, PT Lotte Titan Nusantara, Indonesia shut its LLDPE units at Cilegon from 4 to 12 August, 2019, owing to power failure. Located in Cilegon, Indonesia, the No. 1, 2 and 3 units have a production capacity of 125,000 mt/year, 125,000 mt/year and 200,000 mt/year respectively.

Lotte Chemical Titan produces Malaysia's most comprehensive portfolio of olefins and polyolefins which contribute to the enhancement of everyday life. Lotte Chemical Titan's production site in Malaysia consists of eleven process facilities, two co-generation plants and three tank farms. They are located on 2 sites in Pasir Gudang and Tanjung Langsat in the state of Johor. In 2006, Lotte Chemical Titan acquired PT Lotte Chemical Titan Nusantara, Indonesia’s first and largest polyethylene plant in the country. This acquisition boosted the polyolefins capacity by approximately 50%, thus making the company one of the largest producers in South East Asia. Lotte Chemical Titan was acquired by Lotte Chemical Corp., forming part of the Lotte conglomerate of Korea, in 2010. The company thus became one of Lotte Chemical Corp.’s largest overseas subsidiaries.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Japan’s Sekisui Chemical Co. Ltd. has acquired carbon fibre parts manufacturer AIM Aerospace, based in Renton, Wash., for an undisclosed amount, said Canplastics.

As a result of the purchase, the company will change its name to Sekisui Aerospace.

"The acquisition of Sekisui Aerospace continues Sekisui’s commitment to investing in growth markets with high-quality and principled companies that share our corporate values,” Ian Moran, president of subsidiary Sekisui America, said in a statement. “The addition of Sekisui Aerospace creates new value for our shareholders, customers, communities and employees."

Founded in 1988, Sekisui Aerospace manufactures advanced composite structures, systems, engine components, assemblies and thermoplastic technology for the aerospace industry.

With more than 1,000 employees, the company operates manufacturing centers of excellence as well as a research and technology centre at locations in the U.S. states of Washington and Iowa. Sekisui Aerospace is a fully integrated, diversified composites supplier and includes Quatro Composites.

As MRC informed earlier, Sumitomo Chemical and Sekisui Chemical (Tokyo) said that they are combining their respective polyolefin films business under a new joint venture.

AS per MRC's ScanPlast, October total production of unmixed PVC was about 88,500 tonnes versus 89,400 tonnes a month earlier, SayanskKhimPlast and RusVinyl increased their capacity utilisation last month. Overall PVC production reached 809,000 tonnes in January-September 2019, compared to 784,900 tonnes a year earlier. All plants raised their output, except for Kaustik Volgograd.

Sekisui Specialty Chemicals is an industry leader in research and development of polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) products.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The explosion at TPC Group’s Port Neches, Texas, butadiene facility Wednesday morning takes a large share of US butadiene extraction capacity out action, but the effect on downstream derivative markets should be limited, owing to the availability of spare capacity, says Bill Hyde, reported Chemweek with reference to senior director/olefins and elastomers at IHS Markit.

"The US butadiene producers have not been running at maximum operating rates," says Hyde. "As a result, the loss of 17% of the capacity will not cause the same heartache in the industry as it might in another market."

The butadiene market is typically feedstock-limited, and TPC itself does not produce crude C4, the feedstock for butadiene extraction, Hyde notes. "So the question facing the industry is whether or not there is enough spare capacity and logistical flexibility to get the crude C4 that would have gone to Port Neches to another butadiene extraction unit," he says. "I think the answer to that is likely to be yes. If not, only a fairly small amount of crude C4 will not find a home. This means that for the butadiene derivative producers, this is not as significant an event as it might otherwise seem."

Downstream products include polybutadiene rubber (PBR, 29% of US butadiene demand); adiponitrile, a key nylon-6,6 feedstock (24%); styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR, 21%); styrene-butadiene latex (SB latex, 8%); and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS, 3%).

All 11 US butadiene extraction units are located on the US Gulf Coast (USGC). TPC’s 426,000-metric tons/year unit at Port Neches, Texas, accounts for 17% of the 2.47 million metric tons/year of butadiene capacity in the US, according to data from IHS Markit. The company also has a 417,000-metric tons/year unit at Houston, Texas.

There are five other producers operating nine butadiene extraction units on the USGC: Shell (411,000 metric tons/year), LyondellBasell (388,000 metric tons/year), ExxonMobil (411,000 metric tons/year), and Ineos (98,000 metric tons/year).

Most butadiene consumers in the US do not have their own butadiene extraction units in the region.

The largest consumer is Invista, which produces adiponitrile at Orange, and Victoria, Texas, for a total of 484,000 metric tons/year of consumption capacity, according to data from IHS Markit. Goodyear’s PBR and other derivative units at Beaumont, Texas, have capacity to consume 337,000 metric tons/year.

Arlanxeo has capacity to consume 244,000 metric tons of butadiene at sites in Orange and Houston, Texas, mainly in the production of PBR, but also solution SBR, nitrile rubber, and other products. Lion Elastomers, which produces PBR at Orange, has capacity to consume 153,000 metric tons/year.

Other major consumers include Bridgestone, at Lake Charles, Louisiana; Kraton Polymers, at Belpre, Ohio; and Trinseo, at Midland, Texas, and Dalton, Georgia. Almost 30 more US derivative producers have capacity to consume 1,000–43,000 metric tons/year of butadiene, putting total US consumption capacity at 2.03 million metric tons/year.

According to ICIS-MRC Price report, in Asia, the falling prices of feedstocks for ABS production have been pushing prices of material down in the Russian market. LG Chem's import prices for November quantities were as follows for Russian buyers: natural ABS - at USD1,400-1,420/tonne FOB Korea, black ABS - at USD1,610-1,630/tonne FOB Korea, white ABS - at USD1,640-1,660/tonne FOB Korea. December prices may drop by another USD30-50/tonn.
Natural grades of Korean ABS went down to Rb138,000-143,000/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT, in the domestic market in mid-November, whereas black ABS was offered at Rb156,000-160,000/tonne and white ABS - at Rb158,000-163,000/tonne CPT Moscow , including VAT.

Headquartered in Houston, TPC was acquired in 2012 by private equity groups First Reserve and SK Capital.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Equatorial Guinea announced plans to build two new oil refineries among other energy projects worth USD1 billion, its energy minister was quoted as saying, in a bid to diversify a sector that provides more than 90% of its foreign revenue, said Reuters.

Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons Gabriel Obiang Lima said the new refineries would process 30,000-40,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil including from the key Zafiro offshore field, said a statement from the Africa Oil Power Conference held in the capital Malabo this week.

Other plans include more oil product storage infrastructure, a methanol-to-gasoline plant and the expansion of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, the statement added.

"Phase two is the investment year ... For many years, we have been exploiting our resources and exporting them, but now is the time that we get to the stage of processing," Obiang Lima said, citing 10 new public-private partnerships the country hopes will attract foreign investment.

Equatorial Guinea, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has struggled to attract investment to stem steady declines in production as newer players such as Mozambique and Namibia garner interest.

U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil plans to shed its operations in the country along with USD25 billion worth of other assets worldwide as it seeks to free up cash to focus on a handful of mega-projects.

Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday awarded an offshore bloc with the related Fortuna gas development project to Russia's Lukoil and national oil firm GEPetrol after the concession was reclaimed from Ophir Energy Plc this year.

Recipients of other blocs included U.S.-based Noble Energy as well as Nigeria's Walter Smith, which picked up a concession relinquished by Marathon oil.

The World Bank projected the country's output would decline by over three percent in 2019, warning it was vulnerable to volatile oil prices and needed to improve its business climate in order to diversify its economy and better distribute wealth.

As MRC informed before, ExxonMobil Corp’s Baytown, Texas, chemical plant returned to normal operations on 15 November after a malfunction in the polypropylene (PP) production area.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,589,580 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 976,790 tonnes in January-September 2019, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.

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

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The fire at a petrochemical plant that prompted thousands of people to flee from four Texas communities burned for a third day on Friday with officials huddling as investigations were launched, reported Reuters.

The fiery blast at a TPC Group facility on Port Neches, Texas, on Wednesday injured three workers, blew locked doors off their hinges and was felt in communities far from the site. The plant makes chemicals used in production of synthetic rubber, resins and an octane-boosting component of gasoline.

Firefighting crews continued to battle the blaze on Friday, according to TPC, and local mayors, fire officials were called to a meeting with the region's top executive. Federal and state investigators were searching for the cause of the blaze and a Texas pollution regulator criticized the spate of such fires.

About 60,000 residents in four communities near the site were ordered to leave their homes Wednesday afternoon when a major, secondary blast prompted fears of flames reaching large storage tanks of the petrochemicals.

Butadiene is one of the feedstocks for the production of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS).

According to ICIS-MRC Price report, in Asia, the falling prices of feedstocks for ABS production have been pushing prices of material down in the Russian market. LG Chem's import prices for November quantities were as follows for Russian buyers: natural ABS - at USD1,400-1,420/tonne FOB Korea, black ABS - at USD1,610-1,630/tonne FOB Korea, white ABS - at USD1,640-1,660/tonne FOB Korea. December prices may drop by another USD30-50/tonn.
Natural grades of Korean ABS went down to Rb138,000-143,000/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT, in the domestic market in mid-November, whereas black ABS was offered at Rb156,000-160,000/tonne and white ABS - at Rb158,000-163,000/tonne CPT Moscow , including VAT.

Headquartered in Houston, TPC was acquired in 2012 by private equity groups First Reserve and SK Capital.
MRC