Fire causes partial shutdown at Marathon California refinery

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A portion of Marathon Petroleum Corp’s 363,000 barrel-per-day Carson refinery in California has been shut following a fire, reported Reuters with reference to the company's statement on Wednesday.

The fire, which began on Tuesday, has been contained and is under control, Marathon said in a statement, noting that no injuries were reported.The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department tweeted earlier on Wednesday that the refinery perimeter has been secured and that it did not anticipate the need to evacuate area residents.

"An explosion preceded fire in a cooling tower at the Marathon Refinery," the department tweeted. "Marathon personnel (are) keeping flames in check via fixed ground monitors while they work to depressurize the system. Los Angeles County Fire Department is assisting."

In a filing with the state pollution regulator, the refinery reported an "electrical/mechanical malfunction."

As MRC wrote previously, the gasoline-producing unit at Marathon Petroleum Corp’s 585,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, remained shut for six weeks for repairs in late Juney-early August 2019. The 140,000-bpd gasoline-producing Fluidic Catalytic Cracking Unit 3 (FCCU 3) was shut on June 29 2019 to repair a leak. The refinery’s 65,000 bpd reformer, called Ultraformer 4, was also shut down.

Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of polypropylene (PP).

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).
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Westlake Chemical has started up expanded PVC capacities in Louisiana and Germany, reported NCT with reference to the company's statement during an earnings call.

CEO Albert Chao stated that expansion will add 750 million pounds of PVC (340,194 tons/year) production to its Burghausen and Gendorf sites in Germany, as well as its Geismar site in Louisiana, the US.

Westlake also announced that it has increased its stakes in the LACC ethylene joint venture with Lotte Chemical in October 2019 to 46.8% from the previous 35%.

As MRC wrote earlier, Westlake Chemical Corporation saw lower profits in the fourth quarter of 2019, hurt by reduced global sales prices for its major products. The chemical maker posted a profit of USD72 million down around 41% from USD123 million it earned in the prior-year quarter. The Vinyls segment generated sales of USD1.5 billion, down around 1% year over year. Operating income in the segment was USD68 million, down around 46% year over year. The decline was caused by reduced sales prices for caustic soda and PVC resin. Revenues for full-year 2019 were USD8.12 billion, down around 6% year over year.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, contrary to seasonal factors, Russian producers of unmixed PVC have maintained a high level of capacity utilisation. Russia's overal PVC output totalled 91,700 tonnes in January 2020, up by 4% year on year. January production of unmixed PVC was 91,700 tonnes versus 87,760 tonnes in January 2019 and 81,400 tonnes in December 2019. Thus, despite relatively weak demand for resin from the domestic market, the average capacity utilisation exceeded 95% last month. Russia's overall PVC production reached 975,000 tonnes in 2019, compared to 958,600 tonnes a year earlier.

Westlake Chemical Corporation is an international manufacturer and supplier of petrochemicals, polymers and building products with headquarters in Houston, Texas. The company's range of products includes: ethylene, polyethylene, styrene, propylene, chlor-alkali and derivative products, PVC suspension and specialty resins, PVC Compounds, and PVC building products including siding, pipe, fittings and specialty components, windows, fence, deck and film.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics USA is conducting maintenance works at its 798,000 mt/year polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant and an upstream 753,000 mt/year vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) unit at its Point Comfort, Texas complex in February, reported S&P Global with reference to a source familiar with the company operations.

A company spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company originally planned to conduct those turnarounds in the fourth quarter of this year, but pushed the work to early 2020. The maintenance works are expected to finish in H2 March 2020.

Market participants said the company was boosting its PVC stocks ahead of the work to ensure contract customers remain supplied as usual, as is typical in the lead-up to a turnaround. However, market sources expected export volume availability to be limited in February.

As MRC informed before, Formosa has recently started up its new 1.5 million tons/year cracker in Point Comfort, Texas. The company has been ramping up the operating rates of the cracker.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, contrary to seasonal factors, Russian producers of unmixed PVC have maintained a high level of capacity utilisation. Russia's overal PVC output totalled 91,700 tonnes in January 2020, up by 4% year on year. January production of unmixed PVC was 91,700 tonnes versus 87,760 tonnes in January 2019 and 81,400 tonnes in December 2019. Thus, despite relatively weak demand for resin from the domestic market, the average capacity utilisation exceeded 95% last month. Russia's overall PVC production reached 975,000 tonnes in 2019, compared to 958,600 tonnes a year earlier.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company"s plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The supply of imported injection moulding PET chips to Kazakhstan increased by 56% in the twelve months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 and amounted to 54,300 tonnes against 34,800 tonnes in January - December 2018, said MRC analysts.

External deliveries of injection moulding PET chips to the country continue to decline for the third month in a row. December PET imports in the country were 3,500 tonnes, almost four tomes exceeding the volume of imports of the same period last year.

Imports of injection moulding PET chips in November amounted to 3,900 tonnes. The key supplier of PET chips to Kazakhstan was China, with a 99% share in total imports.

The import of Chinese-made material increased this year by 76% and amounted to 53,500 tonnes against 30,500 tonnes in January-December 2018.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd's (PCG) revenue decreased in 2019 to RM16.37 billion from RM19.58 billion previously, largely due to lower product prices partially offset by the weakening of the ringgit against US dollar, according to NewStraitsTimes with reference to a filing with Bursa Malaysia..

PCG recorded a lower net profit of RM2.81 billion for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2019 from RM4.79 billion a year ago.

Basic earnings per share declined to 35 sen from 60 sen before.

The company has declared a second single tier interim dividend of seven sen per share, with its ex-date on March 12, 2020 and payable on March 27, 2020. Dividend payment for FY19 amounted to 18 sen against 32 sen in FY18.

PCG said its plant utilisation was at 92 per cent in FY19 which was comparable to the corresponding year. Consequently, production and sales volumes in FY19 were comparable with FY18.

"Overall average product prices were lower than the corresponding year in tandem with lower crude oil price and softer market demand," it said.

Moving forward, PCG said the results of the group’s operations were expected to be primarily influenced by global economic conditions, foreign exchange rate movements, utilisation rate of its production facilities, and petrochemical products prices which have a high correlation to crude oil price, particularly for the olefins and derivatives segment.

"The utilisation of our production facilities is dependent on plant maintenance activities and sufficient availability of feedstock as well as utilities supply.

"The group will continue with its operational excellence programme and supplier relationship management to sustain plant utilisation level at above industry benchmark," it said.

PCG expects product prices to stabilise in the current quarter in view of supply limitation following planned regional plant turnarounds, supported by stable demand.

"However, we remain cautious amidst market uncertainties caused by the ongoing US-China trade disputes and the Covid-19 outbreak which could further dampen gross domestic product growth," it added.

As MRC wrote previously, in June 2019, Petronas and Saudi Aramco started operations at their new 1.2-million-tonnes-per-year naphtha cracker. The cracker is part of the USD2.7 billion joint-venture oil refinery and petrochemical project known as RAPID - or Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development - located in Pengerang in the state of Johor, at the southern tip of peninsular Malaysia.

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).

Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
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