MOSCOW (MRC) -- U.S. energy companies are moving to require that employees receive COVID-19 vaccinations as infection rates rise across the United States and energy workers, according to health surveys, remain among those most reluctant to get inoculations, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Calls to require vaccinations for employees who work closely together in oilfield and refinery operations come as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday fully approved the Pfizer-BioNTech shot. The second-largest U.S. oil producer, Chevron Corp, and refiner Valero Energy Corp will require jabs for certain field workers or new workers. Top oilfield services firm Schlumberger said last week some customers are requesting that its staff be vaccinated or tested before arriving on job sites.
"We continuously review our internal policies and procedures to ensure that we can meet our customers’ needs while prioritizing the health and safety of all our employees," a Schlumberger spokeswoman said in an email. San Antonio-based Valero this month became the first U.S. refiner to require vaccinations as a condition of employment for new workers at Texas and Louisiana oil refineries.
Oil producer Hess also said it will require workers at its U.S. Gulf of Mexico operations to be fully vaccinated by Nov. 1. In a statement, the company pointed to the "highly infectious nature" of the Delta variant and rising number of COVID-19 cases in the United States.
Energy and construction workers have some of the lowest vaccine uptake rates, according to an online survey led by Wendy King, an associate epidemiology professor at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Some 45% of extraction and construction workers said they were hesitant to get the vaccine, versus just 7.3% in the computer and mathematical professions, the May survey showed.
Chevron's mandate will cover offshore workers in the Gulf of Mexico, some onshore support staff, expatriates and employees who travel internationally, a spokeswoman said in an email. Earlier this month, Chevron postponed a full return of employees in California and Texas to offices because of a resurgence in coronavirus cases related to the fast-spreading Delta variant.
As per MRC, Chevron and other partners said they are investing in a startup to build modular waste-to-green hydrogen and renewable synthetic fuel facilities in northern California with tentative plans to eventually grow worldwide. The USD20 million investment in Wyoming-based Raven SR is focused on technology to develop combustion-free, green hydrogen for transportation that is cleaner than so-called blue hydrogen derived from natural gas.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC