Texas regulator calls out state's worst, best companies for natural gas flaring

MOSCOW (MRC) -- One of Texas’ oil and gas regulators defended the state’s high rate of natural gas flaring, but named companies that burn off the most gas and said he would hold public meetings on the controversial practice, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Flaring, or deliberately burning gas produced alongside oil, has surged with crude production in Texas, but can worsen climate change by releasing carbon dioxide. The report includes a set of flaring and venting data to be updated quarterly, the first set of such data the state has released.

Ryan Sitton, one of three elected oil and gas regulators, said Texas’ flaring intensity is lower than other oil-producing areas, including North Dakota, Iran, Iraq and Russia. Its flare volumes - around 650,000 thousand cubic feet per day (Mcf/d) in 2018 - are “high for recent history” but do not surpass some years in the 1950s, according to Sitton’s report. "The state as a whole is still well below historical levels and most of the rest of the world," Sitton said in the report.

EP Energy, Endeavor Energy Resources, Surge Operating and Jagged Peak Energy had the state’s highest rates of “flaring intensity," a measurement of flaring volume against oil production, according to the report. The companies could not be reached immediately for comment, but Jagged Peak was recently purchased by Parsley Energy, whose chief executive has criticized Jagged Peak’s high flaring rates.

Companies with the lowest flaring intensity in Texas included Pioneer Natural Resources, EOG Resources , ConocoPhillips and Chesapeake Energy Corp.

Oil drillers tend to flare or vent gas when they lack pipelines to move it to market, or prices are too low to make transporting it worthwhile. Venting releases unburned methane, which is many times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Texas regularly allows companies to burn or vent gas in excess of regulations. It has issued more than 35,000 flaring permits since 2013 and has not denied any, according to the state commission.

"Neither companies nor regulators have kept up with this challenge," said Colin Leyden, a policy advocate for the Environmental Defense Fund, which tracks flaring, adding “pointing fingers at Iran and Iraq does nothing to fix the problem."

In the Permian Basin underlying Texas and New Mexico, the largest U.S. shale basin, flaring and venting totaled about 293.2 billion cubic feet last year, according to state regulatory data compiled by independent energy researcher Rystad – up about 7% from 2018.

As MRC informed earlier, U.S. oil major ConocoPhillips has seized products belonging to Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA from the Isla refinery it runs on Curacao. Conoco has won court orders allowing it to seize PDVSA assets on Caribbean islands, including Curacao, in efforts to collect on a USD2 billion arbitral award linked to the 2007 nationalization of Conoco assets under late leader Hugo Chavez.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US gasoline prices on Tuesday continued a week-long climb as unplanned weekend refinery outages compounded earlier shutdowns at major US Gulf Coast and East Coast plants, reported Reuters with reference to gasoline traders.

Over the weekend, four refineries in Texas and Louisiana shut units directly making gasoline or portions of it, according to refinery sources and energy industry intelligence service Genscape.

Those new outages are expected to tighten US gasoline supply as refineries prepare for planned shutdowns that typically begin in spring and prepare the plants for summer driving-season production.

The average retail price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline was USD2.45, up from USD2.33 a year ago, according to petroleum analytics firm Gas Buddy. Prices have been falling this year as inventories rose and crude oil prices slumped.

On Tuesday, unleaded gasoline futures rose 1.47%, or 2.30 cents, to USD1.6066 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The futures are up nearly 7% since Feb. 12, when a major fire shut most of Exxon Mobil Corp’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery, the fifth-largest in the United States.

Exxon aims to restore production at three shut crude distillation units (CDUs) as quickly as possible and raise production on a fourth, which is operating at a minimal level, said sources familiar with operations. CDUs convert crude oil into feedstock for all other production units.

An Exxon spokesman said operations continue but declined to comment on the status of individual units.

That outage accounted for most of the increase in gasoline prices while adding to the market impact of the Feb. 7 shutdown of the gasoline-producing unit at Phillips 66’s Bayway Refinery in Linden, New Jersey, the largest on the East Coast. Repairs there are expected to last until early to mid-March, according to sources familiar with plant operations.

A company spokesman said planned maintenance was underway.

Over the three-day Presidents Day holiday weekend, the gasoline-producing units at Houston-area refineries operated by LyondellBasell Industries and Chevron Corp were shut, according to refinery sources and Genscape.

Restart timelines for those units were not available from sources or the companies. Neither Chevron nor Lyondell replied to requests for comment.

Reformers, which produce octane-boosting components mixed into gasoline, also were shut at Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Convent, Louisiana, refinery and Marathon Petroleum Corp’s Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, over the weekend. Shell declined to comment on the unit’s status. Marathon was not immediately available to comment.

Restart timelines were also unavailable for those units.

We remind that, as MRC informed before, in September 2019, ExxonMobil announced plans to spend GBP140 million over the next two years in an additional investment program at its Fife ethylene plant, which has a capacity of more than 800,000 t/y.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Xuzhou Haitian, has restarted its polypropylene (PP) plant, following an unplanned maintenance, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that, the company has resumed operations at the plant on February 17, 2020. The plant was shut in early-February, 2020.

Located at Xuzhou, in Jiangsu province of China, the plant has a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote previously, Xuzhou Haitian last took off-stream its PP plant for a maintenance turnaround on August 5, 2018. The plant remained off-stream for around one week. Located at Xuzhou in Jiangsu province of China, the plant has a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, the estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell reported flaring at its 404,000 barrel per day (bpd) Pernis oil refinery in the Netherlands due to failure on a part of an unspecified unit, reported Reuters.

The alert on the refinery’s official Twitter account did not specify the unit involved.

Industry monitor Genscape reported decreased unit heating at a part of the 56,300 bpd hydrocracker early on Wednesday.

The refinery, near Rotterdam, is Europe’s largest.

As MRC informed before, a contractor working at Shell's Pulau Bukom manufacturing site in Singapore has contracted the new coronavirus. The Bukom manufacturing site in Singapore houses Shell's biggest wholly-owned refinery. The company said earlier it had sent some staff home from its main office at Metropolis in western Singapore after discovering another employee had been in contact with a carrier.

We also remind that Shell Singapore restarted its naphtha cracker in Bukom Island in early December, 2019, following a two months maintenance shutdown since the beginning of October 2019. Thus, this cracker was taken off-stream for the turnaround on 1 October 2019. The cracker is able to produce 960,000 tons/year of ethylene and 550,000 tons/year of propylene.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Packaging specialist Amcor Ltd. has joined the Healthcare Packaging Recycling Council (HPRC), a coalition of industry peers across health care, recycling and waste management, seeking to improve recycling of plastic products within health care, said Plasticsnews.

The company will contribute its extensive expertise in packaging design for medical devices and applications in hospitals and other treatment settings.

While the potential for recycling medical device packaging is huge, various obstacles, including current packaging designs and the practical considerations of recycling segregation systems, are standing in the way of implementation, the group says. Yet as sustainability requirements for packaging increase, the health care industry will have to find solutions in order to take advantage of this waste stream, while continuing to ensure product protection and patient safety.

According to Amcor, the health care industry poses a "unique" recycling opportunity. The company, with its global experience in developing more easily recyclable packaging, shares HPRC’s vision of improving recycling rates of healthcare plastics, commented David Clark, vice president sustainability, Amcor.

In January 2018, Melbourne, Australia-based Amcor became the first global packaging company pledging to develop all its packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025. Close collaboration with organizations like HPRC, as well as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and A Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging (CEFLEX), helps to achieve that goal and increase the rates of recycling across all industries to advance a circular economy.

As per MRC's ScanPlast report, the estimated consumption of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in Russia decreased by 16% year on year in December 2019. Russia's overall estimated PET consumption totalled 696,810 tonnes in 2019, up by 1% year on year (690,130 tonnes in 2018).

Amcor Limited is an Australian-based multinational packaging company. It operates manufacturing plants in 42 countries. It is the world's largest manufacturer of plastic bottles.
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