Iranian president inaugurates petrochemical plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday inaugurated Lordegan Petrochemical Company in the southwest of the country, according to XINHUANet.

The plant, which is located in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, has the capacity to produce 677,000 tons of ammonia and 1,075 tons of urea annually.

Rouhani said during the opening ceremony that the products of the facility will be exported and Iran is ready to supply the international market at lower prices, official IRNA news agency reported.

He also welcomed foreign investments in the country's development projects.

According to Tasnim news agency, 800 million U.S. dollars has been invested in the plant so far.

As MRC reported earlier, Iran will launch 42 petrochemical projects by the end of next year.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,594,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, up by 1% year on year. Only high denstiy polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 880,130 tonnes in the nine months of 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports plus imports, excluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.
MRC

KT - Kinetics Technology S.p.A. has been awarded an EP contract in Mexico

MOSCOW (MRC) -- KT - Kinetics Technology, a subsidiary of Maire Tecnimont S.p.A., has been awarded an EP contract by a global engineering and construction company, consisting in the detailed engineering, procurement and delivery of three, large-scale Delayed Coker Furnaces, to be installed in a new oil refinery in Mexico, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The three massive coking furnaces will be delivered fully modularized and ready for site installation, and once completed, will represent one of the world’s largest delayed coking units.

With this new achievement, KT strengthens its track record in refining and confirms its capabilities in supplying highly complex equipment, through the implementation of state-of-the-art technologies and modularization methodologies.

Pierroberto Folgiero, Maire Tecnimont Group CEO, commented: "These awards further consolidate Maire Tecnimont’s positioning in its core business and provide sound evidence of the resilience of our technology-driven development strategy, despite Covid-19 times".

As MRC informed earlier, Maire Tecnimont S.P.A. and Hera Group signed of a strategic agreement between Aliplast, Hera Group’s subsidiary, for the collection, recycling and conversion of plastics, and NextChem, Maire Tecnimont Group’s company, for the development of projects and technologies for the energy transition.

As MRC informed earlier, Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. signed a EUR1.2 billion contract for engineering, procurement and on-site services (EPSS) for the planned Amur Gas Chemical Complex (Amur Gas Chemical Complex) of SIBUR, the largest petrochemical holding in Russia and Eastern Europe. The agreement was signed with the Amurskiy GCC, a subsidiary of SIBUR.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,594,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, up by 1% year on year. Only high denstiy polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 880,130 tonnes in the nine months of 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports plus imports, exluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.

Maire Tecnimont S.p.A., a company listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, leading an international industrial group which is a leader in the transformation of natural resources (plant engineering in downstream oil & gas, with technological and execution competences). Through its subsidiary NextChem it operates in the field of green chemistry and the technologies to support the energy transition. Maire Tecnimont Group operates in about 45 countries, through 50 operative companies and a workforce of approximately 6,300 employees, along with approximately 3,000 professionals in the electro-instrumental division.
MRC

CureVac and Wacker sign manufacturing contract for COVID-19 vaccine candidate

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Wacker will support production of CureVac’s COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccine candidate at its biotech site in Amsterdam, with production scheduled to start in the first half of 2021, as per BioPharm.

On Nov. 23, 2020, biopharmaceutical company CureVac and contract development and manufacturing organization Wacker Chemie jointly announced that they have signed a contract for the manufacture of CureVac’s COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccine candidate, CVnCoV. Under terms of the initial agreement, Wacker will ramp up good manufacturing practice (GMP) production of the mRNA drug substance for the vaccine at its biotech site in Amsterdam in the first half of 2021.

Preparations for the start of production, technology transfers, and test runs are already underway, the companies reported in a press release. Wacker plans to produce more than 100 million doses of the CureVac vaccine per year at its Amsterdam site. The site can also be further expanded to meet rising demand in the future.

The Amsterdam site has a history of producing vaccines for clinical development and commercial supply, with a portfolio that ranges from conventional live and killed vaccines to protein-based, polysaccharide and glycoconjugate vaccines. Wacker has invested in the site in recent months to extend production to include mRNA-based vaccines.

As MRC reported earlier, Wacker Chemie operates a 90 ktpa EVA compounding plant at the Ulsan site, consisting of two lines. The second line with a capacity of 40 thousand tons of products per year was launched in 2013.

According to MRC's DataScope, September EVA imports to Russia fell by 30,32% year on year to 2,38 tonnes from 3,420 tonnes a year earlier, and overall imports of this grade of ethylene copolymer into the Russian Federation dropped in January-September 2020 by 9,85% year on year to 26,340 tonnes (29,220 tonnes a year earlier).

Wacker Chemie manufactures and markets EVA dispersions under the VINNAPAS brand name. VINNAPAS polymer dispersions are used in a wide range of industries: for the production of complex thermal insulation systems, building and tile adhesives, plaster, building mixtures and mortars, cement sealing slurries and nonwovens.
MRC

Sinopec targets carbon neutrality by 2030

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec has established strategic cooperation with three top institutions in Beijing, China, to take lead in a joint research on the energy and chemical industry’s carbon emissions peak and carbon neutrality, said Chemweek.

Sinopec invited thought leaders and experts in the fields of climate change, energy and chemical industry to conduct in-depth research on the strategic path of having CO2 emissions peak and achieve carbon neutrality before 2030 following China’s action plan.

Zhang Yuzhuo, a research fellow and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chairman of the board of Sinopec, noted that achieving the goal of reaching the CO2 emissions peak and going carbon neutral is both a great responsibility and profound revolution for the energy and chemical industry.

“Sinopec will focus on green and low-carbon development from a strategic and overall perspective and move towards the goal of achieving ‘net-zero’ unswervingly, the company will follow the trends of global energy reform and general industrial development to study and determine its own strategic goals, key tasks, implementation approaches and guarantee mechanism,” said Zhang. “Sinopec will also strengthen the communication and exchanges with government departments and industry associations to better serve and support national and industry-related decisions.”

In recent years, Sinopec has promoted its green and low-carbon development tactic for the corporate development strategy, actively control its greenhouse gas emissions to achieve significant carbon emissions results. In the area of clean energy development, Sinopec has expanded its construction of natural gas production capacity and promoted the development of new energy resources such as biomass energy and geothermal energy, while driving forward the development and utilization of hydrogen energy.

To strengthen the company’s energy-saving management, Sinopec implements an “energy efficiency improvement” plan that accelerates industrial structure adjustment to phase out the outdated production capacity.

And in terms of greenhouse gas recovery and utilization, Sinopec is focusing on promoting the recovery and utilization of high-concentration CO2 tail gas from refining and chemical enterprises, carrying out CO2 flooding field tests and methane gas release recovery. The carbon trading transaction volume of enterprises participating in the pilot project has reached 11.1 million tons.

As MRC informed before, in H1 October, 2020, China's Sinopec started operation of a 800,000 tons-per-year ethylene facility at its Zhanjiang refinery. The refinery, located in the southern Chinese coastal city of Zhanjiang, commenced operation of its 200,000 barrel per day crude oil refining units in June.

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

ccording to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,594,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, up by 1% year on year. Only high denstiy polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 880,130 tonnes in the nine months of 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports plus imports, exluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group"s key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
MRC

Borealis upgrades wastewater capture system for plastics at Schwechat, Austria

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Borealis says it has invested EUR6 million (USD7.1 million) in the upgrade of a wastewater treatment system at its integrated production facility in Schwechat, Austria, to further reduce the risk of plastics spillage or loss, said Chemweek.

The new filtration system, installed in November last year, is now fully operational and is part of the company’s sustainability measures to achieve zero plastic pellet loss throughout its operations and facilities, as well as across the entire supply chain. Regular internal monitoring of wastewater flows ensures that emissions always remain within stringent regulatory parameters, Borealis says. Borealis produces around 1 million metric tons/year of polyolefins at its Schwechat plant.

The company’s engineers worked with scientists from the Technische Universitat Wien (TU Wien) and Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria to find novel ways to measure the presence of plastic matter in wastewater, before proceeding to design and custom-build its own new systems for removing such matter. The system is able to filter a broad range of particle sizes of total suspended solids, from several millimeters down to extremely fine, low micrometer range, it says.

"The equipment is installed downstream from existing polymer separators and acts as an additional layer of protection,” Borealis says. Further learnings from the development and study of the filtration system will be leveraged at all its production locations to further improve operations, as well as across its whole value chain, it adds.

"The purification capabilities we had in place in Schwechat were already good, but the upgraded system boasts a level of sophistication that is leading in all of Europe’s plastics industry," says Borealis CEO Alfred Stern. “Innovating for more sustainable living together with our partners in science and making substantial investments in such upgrades enhances our operational excellence. We intend to deliver on our commitment to reducing plastics loss in order to achieve our "Goal Zero’ of no losses whatsoever."

As per MRC, OMV, the international integrated oil and gas company headquartered in Vienna and Mubadala Investment Company, the Abu Dhabi-based strategic investment company, completed the transaction for OMV to acquire an additional 39% stake in Borealis, a leading, global chemicals company, from Mubadala.

Furthermore, OMV and Borealis will jointly expand their know-how and activities in the plastics circular economy. Borealis’ activities in plastics recycling, through its subsidiaries EcoPlast (Austria) and mtm plastics (Germany), Project STOP (Ocean Waste) and the Design For Recycling (DFR) initiative are a perfect addition to OMV’s ReOil technology for the chemical recycling of post-consumer-plastic. The proprietary ReOil® technology converts hard-to-recycle plastic waste into high-quality feedstock for its refineries, substituting the need crude oil.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,496,500 tonnes in the first eight months of 2020, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of all ethylene polymers increased, except for linear low desnity polyethylene (LLDPE). At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 767,2900 tonnes in the eight months of 2020 (calculated using the formula - production minus exports plus imports - and not counting producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.
MRC