Shell and BASF to jointly work on CCS technology

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shell and BASF are collaborating to accelerate the transition to a world of net-zero emissions. To this end, both companies worked together to evaluate, de-risk, and deploy BASF’s Sorbead Adsorption Technology for pre- and post-combustion Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) applications, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The Sorbead Adsorption Technology is used to dehydrate CO2 gas after it has been captured by Shell’s carbon capture technologies such as ADIP Ultra or CANSOLV.

The Adsorption Technology has several advantages for CCS applications: Sorbead, an aluminosilicate gel material, is acid resistant, has high capacity for water, and regenerates at a lower temperature compared to activated alumina or molecular sieves. Furthermore, Sorbead Adsorption Technology ensures the treated gas is free of glycol and will meet stringent pipeline and underground storage specifications. Customers also benefit from long life, operational turndown flexibility and immediate on-spec gas at startup.

The Sorbead Adsorption Technology is now in Shell’s portfolio for use in the numerous CCS projects around the world to achieve their Powering Progress strategy. “BASF has enjoyed a great partnership with Shell over the past several years and I am happy to see another successful qualification. BASF is proud to support Shell in their effort to reach net-zero emissions and work toward improving environmental conditions around the world”, says Dr. Detlef Ruff, Senior Vice President, Process Catalysts at BASF.

As MRC reported earlier, BASF is strengthening its global catalyst development and helping customers to bring new products faster to the market. As part of this strategy, BASF is building a new pilot plant center at its Ludwigshafen site. The new Catalyst Development and Solids Processing Center will serve as a global hub for pilot-scale production and process innovations of chemical catalysts. The new building is scheduled for completion by mid-2024.

We remind that BASF aims is to electrify its production processes for basic chemicals, which are currently based on fossil fuels.

We also remind that in mid-February, BASF said it was restarting one of its steam crackers at its Ludwigshafen complex in Germany after operations were halted earlier that month due to a technical issue. The naphtha cracker produces ethylene and propylene, and is one of two crackers on the site. One has a production capacity of 420,000 metric tons/year, with the other"s capacity at 240,000 metric tons/year.

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 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.

BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries.

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.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- A major manufacturer of synthetic rubber, Firestone Polymers LLC, has agreed to pay USD4 million in fines and an environmental project and make numerous improvements to settle a long list of state and federal air pollution complaints at its plant in southwest Louisiana, said the company.

The plant in Sulphur was “Louisiana’s highest emitter of three types of hazardous air pollutants,” violating the Clean Air Act, David Gray, regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The plant illegally emitted thousands of tons of pollutants including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and more than a dozen other substances and chemicals, according to the 127-page federal complaint against the plant near Lake Charles.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alleged that Firestone emitted excess amounts of pollutants including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, and hazardous air pollutants including 1,3-butadiene, n-hexane, styrene, formaldehyde, methanol and others, according to a complaint filed the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

The settlement requires several actions from Firestone, including meeting emissions limits, operating and maintenance requirements, equipment controls, limiting hazardous air pollutants from facility dryers, conducting inspections of heat exchangers, installing controls and monitors on covered flares and installing flaring instrumentation and monitoring systems. The EPA noted that Firestone has already taken compliance measures.

Firestone will also complete a Beneficial Environmental Project in Louisiana by funding ambient air monitoring system upgrades in several locations in southwest Louisiana. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As per MRC, Bridgestone Firestone, a subsidiary of Japan's Bridgestone Corporation, shut production at its Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR) plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA on February 15 due to cold weather in the region. The plant with a capacity of 134,000 tonnes SBR per year does not work due to problems associated with extreme weather conditions in the US Gulf of Mexico. Although electricity was restored to the plant, cold weather and power outages in the area resulted in the cutoff of water and other circulation needed to keep the plant running.

According to MRC's ScanPlast, July total estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics in Russia increased by 4% compared to the same month last year and amounted to 46,540 tonnes. The total consumption of PS in the country amounted to 328,980 tonnes, up 23% year on year in January - July 2021.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras, formally known as Petroleo Brasileiro SA, said on Friday it had halted talks with Brazilian conglomerate Ultrapar on the sale of the state-run oil company's Refap refinery, part of its program to sell eight plants, reported Reuters.

The company said it would relaunch the process of selling Refap in the future but did not provide a date.

"Despite the efforts made by both companies in this process, certain critical conditions were not met for an agreement," Petrobras said in a securities filing, adding there would be no penalties for either party.

Credit Suisse analysts said the ending of the process was negative for Petrobras, as failing to divest refineries increased the downstream price risk.

"(It is) marginally negative for Ultrapar as it loses that potential catalyst in the case, but also reduces risk," Credit Suisse added in a research note.

As MRC wrote before, Petrobras had announced in January that Ultrapar was leading the talks to acquire the asset, but three people close to the deal told Reuters at the time that the state-run firm was trying to push the conglomerate to boost its offer.

We remind that in August 2021, Petrobras hired JPMorgan Chase & Co as an advisor to sell its stake in the petrochemical company Braskem SA.

We also remind that Braskem is no longer pursuing a petrochemical project, which would have included an ethane cracker, in West Virginia. And the company is seeking to sell the land that would have housed the cracker. The project, announced in 2013, had been on Braskem's back burner for several years.

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 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.

Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated energy firm. Petrobras' activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related activities.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Equinor's Mongstad oil refinery in Norway was evacuated following a naphtha leak at the facility's diesel-making unit on but output was unaffected, reported Reuters with reference to the company's statement.

There were no injuries and the leak has been stopped, police separately said.

"The situation has been normalised and people are back at work," Equinor spokesperson Eskil Eriksen said, adding that only non-essential staff had been evacuated.

"It has not affected production."

Mongstad is Equinor's largest refinery and has a crude oil and condensate distillation capacity of 226,000 barrels per day, according to the company.

The wider Mongstad area contains refinery operations, a terminal for crude oil exports as well as other facilities.

As MRC informed earlier, there were serious breaches of regulations at an Equinor methanol plant that caught fire last year, Norway's petroleum safety watchdog (PSA) said in June 2021, ordering the company to improve maintenance practices and documentation.

In October 2017, Mongstad suffered a two-week outage caused by a naphtha leak, and in December 2018 Equinor halted parts of the refinery's gasoline output following a spill of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

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 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia is expected to have 3.464 million tonnes of primary oil refining capacity offline in October, a weekly estimate based on Refinitiv Eikon data and Reuters calculations showed on Friday, up 9.1% from last week's estimate, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

That is still be lower than the previous month, with many plants expected to finish maintenance.

Expected idled refining capacity for September was estimated at 3.943 million tonnes, down 7.9% from last week's estimate.

The revisions follow adjustments to maintenance schedules by some refineries.

As MRC reported earlier, in August 2021, industrial production in the Russian Federation increased by 4.7% compared to August 2020, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said in a statement.

We remind that Russia's GDP in 2021 will grow to 4.2% instead of the projected 3.8%, said State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Economy Alexei Khersonsev in September 2021.

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 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC