INEOS starts UK hand sanitiser production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- INEOS, one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, has today announced that it has hit its ten day target to build a hand sanitiser plant near Middlesbrough and has started producing 1 million hand sanitisers a month, as per the company's press release.

Hand to mouth contamination is one of the main ways that the Coronavirus infects people and there is a critical shortage of hand sanitisers across the UK and Europe.

INEOS is focusing on meeting the needs of front line medical and care services as well as making “pocket bottle” hand sanitisers available for people’s personal use. These will be produced to World Health Organisation specifications.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS says, “Now that production of the INEOS hand sanitiser has started, we are working on the fastest way to get them to where they need to be. I am confident that within a few days our sanitiser will start to be seen in hospitals, surgeries and people’s homes”.

INEOS is the leading European producer of the two key raw materials needed for sanitisers – isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and ethanol, producing almost 1 million tonnes. The company is already running these plants flat out and have been diverting more of this product to essential medical use including in the new INEOS factories.

INEOS takes its corporate and social responsibilities extremely seriously. Its products are essential to the production of essential healthcare products from rubber gloves, to PVC saline drips, syringes, ventilators, medical tubing. Its products purify the public’s drinking water. It produces raw materials for soap, phenol for aspirin and paracetamol, and its acetonitrile is being used in pharmaceutical analysis essential in procedures necessary to find a vaccine.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS adds, “INEOS is a company with enormous resources and manufacturing skills. If we can find other ways to help in the Coronavirus battle, we are absolutely committed to playing our part”.

As MRC informed before, in January 2019, INEOS announced Antwerp as the location for its new petrochemical investment. The EUR3 billion investment will be the biggest ever made by INEOS and is first cracker to be built in Europe in 20 years. The investment is a game changer for the chemical sectors and will bring huge benefits to the Belgium and wider European economies.

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.

INEOS is a global manufacturer of petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and oil products employing 22,000 people. It has 34 businesses, with a production network spanning 183 manufacturing facilities in 26 countries.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indian refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd has issued a force majeure notice to Iraq’s Oil Marketing Company (SOMO) to cancel two oil cargoes as local fuel demand is hit by a lockdown to stem spread of coronavirus, reported Reuters with reference to an industry source.

State-run HPCL was scheduled to lift these cargoes containing one million barrels each in the first half of April, this source said. The source did not wish to be identified citing confidentiality.

No immediate comment was available from HPCL. SOMO could not be immediately reached for comments.

HPCL is the third Indian company to invoke force majeure for crude supplies. Last week two India refiner- Indian Oil Corp and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd have invoked force majeure on crude imports mainly from middle east.

Many Indian refiners have reduced crude processing as fuel demand drops.

HPCL has cut crude processing at its Mumbai refinery by 10%, while it is operating its Vizag refinery at 100% capacity to feed southern Indian market.

As MRC informed before, India's private-sector Haldia Petrochemicals (HPL) has shut its naphtha cracker, after ports in the country declared force majeure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The petrochemical maker operates a 670,000 tonnes per year cracker, which on average would need more than 150,000 tonnes of naphtha feedstock a month if the unit is at full capacity, based on Reuters calculations.

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).

Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd is a modern naphtha based petrochemical complex at Haldia, West Bengal, India. Haldia has played the role of a catalyst in emergence of more than 500 downstream processing industries in West Bengal with a capacity to process more than 3,50,000 TPA of polymers, among which are PE and PP.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Overall imports of expandable polystyrene (EPS) to the Ukrainian market rose in the first two months of 2020 by 9% year on year to 3,900 tonnes, according to MRC's DataScope report.

This figure was 3,600 tonnes in January-February 2019.

The share of Russian material grew significantly in the total shipments in the first two months of the year, accounting for 78% (3,100 tonnes), compared to 41% (1,500 tonnes) a year earlier. Chinese EPS shipments fell sharply over the stated period to 8% (300 tonnes) from 51% (1,800 tonnes) in January-February 2019.

February EPS imports to Ukraine were 1,800 tonnes versus 2,100 tonnes a month earlier, this figure was also at 2,100 tonnes in February 2019.

The share of Russian material remained in February at the level of January, totalling 79% (1,400 tonnes). The share of Chinese shipments dropped to 7% (128 tonnes) in February from 8% (172 tonnes) a month earlier.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Under the pressure of stronger demand and tight supply, prices of low density polyethylene (LDPE) have risen on a weekly basis since early March. LDPE prices had gone up by more than Rb14,000/tonne by the end of the month, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

Demand for LDPE in the Russian market has begun to recover actively since late February, after oversupplied December and January. In early March, the need in polyethylene (PE) grew even more due to early spring in a number of regions, whereas most sellers' supply was tight, and some of them had sold out all their March quotas by the middle of the month. As a result, LDPE prices rose on a weekly basis, and some sellers announced a further price increase for April shipments this week.

108 grade LDPE was the most scarce PE grade throughout the whole March. The key suppliers - Angarsk Polymers Plant, Ufaorgsintez, and Kazanorgsintez - virtually did not have large stocks of this PE. And increased demand led to a price rise from Rb62,500/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT, in the last week of February to Rb76,000/tonne, CPT Moscow, including VAT, by the end of March.

The situation was also similar with 158 grade LDPE in the second half of March, many sellers had sold out all their March quantities by the middle of last month, whereas demand remained at good. The scheduled maintenance at Kazanorgsintez’s production capacities (from 11 April to 10 May) only aggrevated the situation. And if at the beginning of the month prices of this PE started from Rb70,000//tonne, CPT Moscow, including VAT, then by the end of March, they went up to Rb84,000/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT, and higher.

In late March, some producers announced an increase of Rb3,000-5,000/tonne in April LDPE prices.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US nonfuel-use propylene inventories totaled 5.496 million barrels (bbl) during the week ending 20 March, up 145,000 bbl (2.7%) from the previous week and roughly even with the level of two weeks ago, reported Chemweek with reference to the US Department of Energy.

Propane and propylene stocks decreased by 1.8 million bbl (2.7%) to a total combined inventory of 64.9 million bbl.

Combined propane and propylene stocks in Gulf Coast (PADD 3) region decreased by 1.3 million bbl to 48.6 million bbl week over week. The Midwest (PADD 2) remained flat at 10.5 million bbl. PADD 1 inventories dropped 300,000 bbl to 4 million bbl, and PADDs 4 and 5 decreased by 300,000 bbl to 1.8 million bbl.

Products supplied for propane and propylene fell this week by 20,000 b/d on the week to 1,059,000 b/d.

Propane and propylene imports week over week saw an increase of 26,000 b/d to 149,000 b/d, and exports rose 285,000 b/d to 1,433,000 b/d.

US inventories are up 25.7% from the year-ago period.

OPIS is an IHS Markit company.

We reminad that, as MRC informed before, Enterprise Products Partners' Mont Belvieu propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit in Texas restarted from planned maintenance in the first week of December, 2019. The PDH unit went offline for maintenance on November 13. That day, the company said in a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that the RAC "B" turbine shut down, which resulted in flaring. The flaring was estimated to last 72 hours. The unit has a capacity of 750,000 mt/year, according to Platts data.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market were 192,760 tonnes in January-February 2020, down 6% year on year. Homopolymer PP accounted for the main decrease in supplies.
MRC