Virus concerns halt Shell Pennsylvania project construction

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The COVID-19 outbreak has led Shell Chemical to temporarily suspend construction on the massive plastics and petrochemicals site it's building in Monaca, Pa, reported PlasticsNews.

"The health and well-being of our workers and nearby communities remains Shell's top priority," Shell Pennsylvania Chemical Vice President Hilary Mercer said in a March 18 statement. "That's an ethos we live by every day, but it's especially relevant at a time when the world is taking drastic measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus. We're committed to doing our part."

Mercer added that "in the days ahead [Shell] will install additional mitigation measures aligned with CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidance."

"Once complete, we will consider a phased ramp-up that allows for the continuation of safe, responsible construction activities," she said.

Mercer also said that Shell officials "are proud of the over 8,000 workers who have committed their time and expertise to one of the largest construction projects in the United States, and the first of its kind in Pennsylvania.

"The decision to pause was not made lightly," she said. "But we feel strongly the temporary suspension of construction activities is in the best long-term interest of our workforce, nearby townships and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

"Our goal is to build a positive, decades-long legacy in the region. That means earning our right to live and work here every day. It also means caring for people. While understandably disappointing to many, we believe this decision honors that approach."

Shell began construction in Monaca, near Pittsburgh, in late 2017. The 386-acre project will be the first US petrochemicals project built outside of the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana in several decades. Production is expected to begin in the early 2020s.

The complex will use ethane from shale gas produced in the Marcellus and Utica basins to make around 3.5 billion pounds of polyethylene resin per year. The complex will include four processing units, an ethane cracker and three PE units. Most of the resin made in Monaca is expected to be sold to Shell customers within North America.

Shell Chemical is a unit of global energy firm Royal Dutch Shell. The business is based in The Hague, Netherlands, with US headquarters in Houston.

As MRC informed earlier, in mid-February 2020, Shell confirmed coronavirus case at its Singapore refining site. Namely, a contractor working at Shell's Pulau Bukom manufacturing site in Singapore contracted the new coronavirus.

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 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.

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) -- Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical (PRefChem), a joint venture of Petronas and Saudi Aramco, confirmed an explosion and fire at the Pengerang Integrated Complex in Johor, Malaysia, reported Apic-online with reference to several industry reports.

The complex has a 300,000-b/d refinery, which, once fully operational, will provide feedstock for an integrated petrochemical complex with a nameplate capacity of 3.3-million t/y.

Five people were killed in the explosion, which occurred at the diesel hydrotreater unit. The site has been shut down and an investigation into the cause of the incident is underway.

The complex also experienced an explosion and fire last April in the atmospheric residue desulfurization unit. There were no casualties in that fire.

As MRC wrote before, PRefChem took its naphtha cracker in Johor off-stream after an explostion and fire at the site with no notice on how long the unit would remain shut. The cracker has an annual capacity of 1.2 million tons/year of ethylene and 600,000 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 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.

PrefChem is a 50:50 joint venture between Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas, and Saudi Aramco. The Pengerang Refining development, part of Petronas’ USD27 billion Pengerang Integrated Complex, consists of a 300,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) oil refinery and a petrochemical complex with a production capacity of 7.7 million tonnes per year in the southern Malaysian state of Johor.

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.

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

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Half of Canada’s small firms have already seen a drop in sales due to the economic effects of COVID-19, with four in 10 also reporting a decrease greater than 25%, a new survey conducted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) says, said Canplastics.

Conducted online beginning on March 13, the survey has received 8,730 responses. “The early economic impacts of coronavirus on Canada’s SMEs has been massive,” said Dan Kelly, CFIB president, in a statement. “Even more alarming is our finding that a full quarter of small firms would not be able to survive for more than a month with a drop in business income of more than 50%.”

Other key small business findings include:
The sectors most badly affected are hospitality, recreation, retail and personal services;
The average cost to those affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19 is about $66,000;
43% have reduced hours for staff and 20% have started temporary layoffs;
38% have experienced supply chain issues;
42% said they will have zero sales if face-to-face contact becomes impossible.

When asked what additional measures governments should put in place to help them, 91 per cent of respondents said that government should offer direct financial support for firms experiencing a significant drop in sales. In addition, small business owners suggest governments:
Provide temporary tax relief on income, payroll and sales taxes (69%)
Cancel planned tax increases such as CPP/QPP and carbon tax (66%)
Delay tax filing deadlines and eliminate penalties for late payments and remittance (65%)
Introduce wage subsidies for businesses to retain staff (58%)
Create incentives to boost consumer spending (46%).

As MRC informed earlier, operations at Italian petrochemical producer Versalis (part of Eni) have not affected by emergency quarantine measures in the country. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte extended its emergency coronavirus measures Wednesday evening and announced the closure of "non-essential" commercial businesses. This follows the announcement of a nationwide lockdown on Monday, limiting movement for around 60 million people. Under these measures people will only be allowed to leave their homes for work or health reasons. Versalis has three steam crackers in Italy, capable of producing 1.675 million mt of ethylene, 750,000 of propylene and 285,000 mt of butadiene a year.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rolling Stone magazine this week published an article called “Planet Plastic,” focused on the problem of plastic waste, said the ACCA.

The American Chemistry Council issued the following statement, which may be attributed to Keith Christman, ACC’s managing director of plastics markets: "Rolling Stone’s recent article “Planet Plastic” tells an important story in a misleading way. The accumulation of plastic waste is a very real problem that will take substantive actions and ongoing coordination to solve. Everyone from plastic makers to government to nonprofits to individual citizens has an important role to play.

Plastic makers are deeply committed to being part of the solution. Our goals – to reuse, recycle or recover all plastic packaging in the United States by 2040 and to make all plastic packaging recyclable by 2030 – demonstrate our commitment to help eliminate plastic waste, and our belief that it can be done.

In less than three years, the private sector has invested more than USD4 billion in advanced recycling technologies. These processes can manufacture a wider range of products from a wider range of used plastics than traditional recycling methods, while helping to reduce our carbon footprint. The nearly 50 members of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste have committed to invests $1.5 billion over five years, to identify solutions that will help end plastic waste in the environment. Investments like these are expected to grow and scale in the future.

Frustration with the current state of waste management is understandable. It’s vital that we fix our outdated recycling system, but recycling alone won’t solve the problem.

Driving waste out of our systems will require a range of solutions, such as using plastics more efficiently, designing products and packaging that are easier to recycle, developing new technologies, forging new business models, promoting sound public policies, and investing in infrastructure.

Originally conceived to collect just bottles, local recycling programs now process a host of materials, and investments haven’t kept up with product and packaging innovations. Across the country, more than 10,000 localities manage their own recycling systems, and most handle recycling differently. The good news is that these are fixable problems. The better news is that the plastics industry is already working to reduce waste through partnerships, innovation and investments in modern and efficient waste management here in the United States and around the globe.

As MRC informed earlier, Shell announced it has successfully made high-end chemicals using a liquid feedstock made from plastic waste. The technique, known as pyrolysis, is considered a breakthrough for hard-to-recycle plastics and advances Shell's ambition to use one million tons of plastic waste a year in its global chemicals plants by 2025.

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) -- Huntsman has agreed to buy CVC Thermoset Specialities, a North American specialty chemical manufacturer, for USD300 million in cash. CVC makes highly specialized toughening, curing and other additives used in various composite, adhesive and coatings applications across the aerospace, automotive and industrial markets, said the company.

The transaction, which remains subject to the usual closing conditions, is anticipated to complete around mid-2020.

Part of Emerald Performance Materials, which is majority owned by affiliates of private equity firm American Securities, CVC has annual revenues of about USD115 million and operates two plants in Akron, Ohio and Maple Shade, New Jersey.

"The acquisition of CVC Thermoset Specialties brings valuable complementary technology breadth to our Advanced Materials portfolio and its unique products will make systems using our class-leading epoxy-based materials even tougher, stronger, and more durable,” said Scott Wright, president of Huntsman’s Advanced Materials division.

"In addition to strengthening our position in North America, Huntsman will use our existing asset footprint and routes to market in Europe and Asia to rapidly grow and globalize CVC Thermoset Specialties’ exciting and complementary product range. This acquisition will further improve our ability to create differentiation in our customers’ applications, in particular through our strong formulations business," Wright said

Peter Huntsman, chairman, president and CEO of Huntsman, added that “significant synergies” between the businesses are expected within two years.

Late last month, Huntsman closed its purchase of Icynene-Lapolla, a leading North American manufacturer and distributor of spray polyurethane foam (SPF) insulation systems. Huntsman said the combination of Icynene-Lapolla with Demilec, the SPF business it acquired in 2018, will create the world’s leading supplier of spray foam products used to insulate commercial and residential structures.

“The combined business is now approaching USD500 million in revenues and by the end of 2021 with synergies we see the SPF business exceeding USD100 million in EBITDA,” said Huntsman. At facilities in Texas, USA, and Ontario, Canada, Icynene-Lapolla produces a full range of MDI-based SPF formulations and reflective roof coatings, which it markets directly to applicators as well as through distributors.

As MRC informed earlier, Huntsman has announced that in 2020, its polyols production facility in Kuan Yin, Taiwan, will begin to utilise the company's well-proven Terol polyols technology to recycle distressed PET streams to satisfy the growing demand from the regional PIR foam insulation market.

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

According to MRC"s ScanPlast report, Russia"s estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim"s homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.
MRC