Firefighters work overnight battling chemical factory fire in Kaohsiung City

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Firefighters in Kaohsiung City worked through the night to extinguish a fire at a chemical plant in the Linyuan Industrial Park after an explosion and fire was reported at around 8:30 pm in the evening, January 29, reported Taiwan English News.

Thirty-six vehicles and 75 personnel were dispatched from 14 fire stations to battle the blaze at the UPC Technology Corporation (1313.TW) plasticizer plant on Gongye 2nd Road.

The fire destroyed around 300 square meters containing plasticizer dioctyl phthalate (DOP) and phthalic anhydride (PA) production lines. No casualties were reported and the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

The fire was described as intense and difficult to control due to the large amount of chemical raw materials involved. Firefighters battled to stop the fire spreading to the adjacent Formosa Plastics, and Taiwan Petrochemical Corporation plants.

The fire was brought under control at around 10:30 pm, but firefighters continued to deal with residual fires overnight, and were still dousing the area with water at 7:00 am this morning.

The Kaohsiung City Environmental Protection Bureau closely monitored air quality around the site saying that the plasticizers were a level one poison. The company will be fined NTD5 million under Article 32 of the air pollution law.

Nearby residents complained that this was the fourth pollution incident in the Linyuan Industrial Park this month, after a biogas explosion at the wastewater plant of the Taiwan Benzene Chemical plant January 12, a smoke incident at the Yaju Linyuan Plant January 22, and an air pollution incident at the Xinchang Chemical Plant January 27.

As MRC informed earlier, Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (FPCC) was running its crackers in Taiwan at 100% capacity utilisation in end-December, 2020. The company"s crackers have combined ethylene production capacity of 2.935 million metric tons/year. Meanwhile, FPCC is planning overhaul of the smallest cracker in mid-2021.

Plasticizers are substances introduced into a polymer material to make it elastic and plastic during processing and operation. In particular, plasticizers are used for the production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The share of plasticizers used for the production of PVC products is about 80%.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall PVC production reached 976,500 tonnes in 2020, up by 0.2% year on year. Only two producers managed to increase their PVC output.

Founded in 1976, Taiwan UPC Technology Corporation is mainly engaged in the research, development and manufacturing of petrochemical products. Its products include maleic and phthalic anhydrides, plasticizers, polyols, fatty esters, epoxy resins and other specialty chemicals.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Clariant says that Harolf Kottmann, the company’s chairman since 2018, has informed Clariant’s board that he will no longer be a candidate for the office of chairman and board member, at the company's annual shareholders’ meeting in April, reported Chemweek.

Following Kottmann’s announcement, at an extraordinary board meeting, the Clariant board unanimously proposed to shareholders that Gunter von Au should be elected chairman, the company says.

Sabic, which owns 31.5% of Clariant’s shares, has agreed with the Clariant board's agenda items and withdrawn its request of a time limit of 12 years for members of Clariant’s board including the chairperson, which it had submitted in December 2020 as an item to be discussed at the upcoming shareholders' meeting, the company says. Sabic has instead asked for the time limit to be anchored in the bylaws of Clariant’s board, Clariant says.

Sabic has also withdrawn a proposal for the distribution of a special dividend to Clariant shareholders of up to 2.00 Swiss francs per share (USD2.24/share), the company says. The Clariant board has proposed an ordinary dividend of SFr0.70/share, which includes SFr0.55/share for 2019 and SFr0.15/share for 2020, it says.

According to an earlier Reuters report, adopting Sabic's proposed time limit “would force Clariant chairman Hariolf Kottmann out, though other board members have several years before they would be affected.” Kottmann said during an analysts’ presentation on 8 January that he could not comment on the matter and that Sabic’s request would be discussed at Clariant’s annual shareholders’ meeting.

Kottmann had been serving as Clariant’s executive chairman ad interim since the sudden departure of Ernesto Occhiello in July 2019, only 10 months after replacing Kottmann as Clariant’s CEO. On 1 January 2021, Conrad Keijzer assumed responsibility as Clariant’s CEO and Kottmann returned to his position as chairman of the board.

As MRC reported earlier, in October 2020, Clariant (Muttenz, Switzerland) announced the construction of a new state-of-the-art catalyst production site in China. This project represents a significant investment which further strengthens Clariant’s position in China and enhances its ability to support its customers in the country’s thriving petrochemicals industry.

The new facility will be primarily responsible for producing the Catofin catalyst for propane dehydrogenation, which is used in the production of olefins such as propylene. Thanks to its excellent reliability and productivity, Catofin delivers superior annual production output compared to alternative technologies, resulting in increased overall profitability for propylene producers, says the company. Construction at the Dushan Port Economic Development Zone in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province was scheduled to commence in Q3 2020, and Clariant expects to be at full production capacity by 2022.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, exluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020).

Clariant AG is a Swiss chemical company and a world leader in the production of specialty chemicals for the textile, printing, mining and metallurgical industries. It is engaged in processing crude oil products in pigments, plastics and paints.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Ineos Styrolution, the styrenics subsidiary of Ineos, says it is collaborating with Polystyvert (Montreal, Canada) to convert post-consumer polystyrene (PS) into recycled PS resin using Polystyvert’s dissolution technology, said Chemweek.

The companies have signed a joint development agreement for the dissolution process to convert waste PS into recycled resin. The process takes solid PS waste and dissolves it in a solvent, before processing and then separating the end-product from the solvent as a polymer for reuse, it says.

Polystyvert’s purification technology “offers the ability to treat all types of feedstock, from industrial waste to post-consumer streams,” and can eliminate hard-to-remove contaminants such as pigments and brominated flame-retardants, Styrolution says. The recycled PS pellets can then be used to manufacture various categories of PS products, including food-grade applications, it says.

As MRC informed earlier, Ineos Styrolution plans to raise prices for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) by 7 cents per pound (USD154 per tonne) from February 1. The company also sought a similar increase in ABS prices from December 15 by two of its brands. The intention to raise prices stems from rising raw materials and logistics costs associated with the production and supply of ABS, the letter said.

According to the ICIS-MRC Price Report, ABS imports to Russia grew by 4% in the first ten months of this year compared to the same period last year and amounted to 29,100 tonnes against 28,000 tonnes. The share of South Korean supplies amounted to 62% (18,200 tonnes) against 57% (16,100 tonnes) in January-October 2019.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Air Liquide has completed the construction of the world’s largest PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) electrolyzer in Becancour, Quebec, Canada, according to Kemicalinfo.

Supplied with renewable energy, this unit is now producing up to 8.2 tonnes per day of low-carbon hydrogen.

With this large-scale investment, the Group confirms its long-term commitment to the hydrogen energy markets and its ambition to be a major player in the supply of low-carbon hydrogen.

The new 20 MW PEM electrolyser, equipped with Cummins technology, is the largest operating unit of its kind in the world and will help meet the growing demand for low-carbon hydrogen in North America.

Becancour’s proximity to the main industrial markets in Canada and the United States will help ensure their supply of low-carbon hydrogen for industrial use and mobility. The commissioning of this electrolysis unit increases by 50% the capacity of Air Liquide’s Becancour hydrogen production complex.

Compared to the traditional hydrogen production process, this new production unit will avoid the emission of around 27,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, which is equivalent to the emissions of 10,000 cars per year.

The choice of Becancour is based on two attributes of the site: the access to abundant renewable power from Hydro-Quebec and the proximity to the hydrogen mobility market in the northeast of the continent.

Susan Ellerbusch, CEO, Air Liquide North America and Group Executive Committee Member: “The fight against climate change is at the heart of the Air Liquide Group’s strategy. The inauguration of the Becancour site in Canada marks an important step in the implementation of this strategy. With this world’s first, Air Liquide confirms its commitment to the production of low-carbon hydrogen on an industrial scale and its ability to effectively deploy the related technological solutions. Hydrogen will play a key role in the energy transition and the emergence of a low-carbon society.”

As MRC informed earlier, in September 2020, Air Liquide finalised an agreement with Sasol to acquire the biggest oxygen production site in the world with a plan to reduce its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 30%. After the announcement on July 29, the international major industry gas company has now entered into a business purchase agreement with Sasol to acquire the oxygen production site in Secunda, South Africa.

We remind that Sasol's world-scale US ethane cracker with the capacity of 1.5 mln tonnes per year reached beneficial operation on 27 August 2019. Sasol's new cracker, the heart of LCCP, is the third and most significant of the seven LCCP facilities that came online and will provide feedstock to the company's six new derivative units at Sasol's Lake Charles multi-asset site.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,220,640 tonnes in 2020, up by 2% year on year. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, exluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Wall Street analysts gave little credence to the possibility of an Exxon-Chevron mega merger, as news of talks last year between the two largest US oil companies leaked ahead of Exxon's results that are expected to show the company posting its first-ever annual loss, reported Reuters.

Shares in both the companies were down in early trading in New York, despite a rising overall market and weekend gains in global crude prices.

"At the depths of the market last year... a cost cutting focused merger of the two companies may have made sense and also scale matters in this industry so it would have created by far the largest integrated oil company," said Anish Kapadia, director of energy at London-based Palissy Advisors.

However, anti-trust concerns and the new US administration's stance on big mergers make it unlikely that a deal resurfaces, Kapadia said, adding that buying smaller, hard-hit oil companies gives Exxon and Chevron more value.

As oil producers in Europe adapt to investors' push for a shift into renewables, it is also possible that Chevron or Exxon could buy the oil producing business of a European major in the coming years, Kapadia said.

Exxon's year-end results scheduled for Tuesday are expected to be marred by a charge of up to USD20 billion on the value of its natural gas properties.

The collapse in oil prices last April briefly pushed crude into negative territory and created a survival crisis for large parts of the US industry.

"Given the precipitous drop (last year)... it is not surprising that XOM and CVX had a discussion about merging," said Mark Stoeckle, CEO of Baltimore-based Adams Funds.

"The sharp snapback in prices likely cooled both companies. There would no doubt be significant cost synergies to be had, but the antitrust issues in a Biden administration would probably be too much to overcome."

As MRC informed previously, in December 2020, Chevron Corporation made a 2021 organic capital and exploratory spending program of USD14 billion and lowered its longer-term guidance to USD14 to USD16 billion annually through 2025. This capital outlook will continue to prioritize investments that are expected to grow long-term value and deliver higher returns and lower carbon, including over USD300 million in 2021 for investments to advance the energy transition.

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

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world"s oil and about 2% of the world"s energy.

Headquartered in San Ramon, California, Chevron Corporation is the the second-largest integrated energy company in the United States and among the largest corporations in the world. Chevron is involved in upstream activities including exploration and production, downstream activities including refining, marketing and transportation, and advanced energy technology. Chevron is also invested in power generation and gasification processes.
MRC