SIBUR will participate in the formation of a platform for scientific and technical developments

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SIBUR, Russia’s leading petrochemicals producer, the largest international chemical companies and the World Economic Forum agreed on establishing a breakthrough pre-competitive development platform, designed to accelerate net-zero climate technologies, said the company.

The LCET members including Sibur, Air Liquide, BASF, Clariant, Covestro, Dow, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp., Royal DSM, SABIC, Solvay and the World Economic Forum agreed to set up a company by the end of 2023 to share early-stage risks and co-invest in developing and improving low-carbon-emitting technologies. The collaboration targets public and private partnerships, cooperation on common challenges and finding joint solutions to those challenges on the path to net-zero emissions.

"SIBUR believes that the petrochemical industry has technological, industrial and scientific potential in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to a low-carbon economy,’’ said Darya Borisova, managing director, board member at SIBUR. The company has been consistently incorporating ESG principles into all business processes, in accordance with its Sustainable Development Strategy to 2025".

SIBUR is taking active steps to reduce its own climate impact and adapt to climate changes, using a range of decarbonisation tools.

One of the company’s key projects contributing to the circular economy and lower greenhouse gas emissions is production of green PET granules using recycled plastics at the Polief plant in Blagoveshchensk. The granules will contain up to 25% of recycled materials and will meet the growing market demand for eco-packaging. The use of recycled materials will also reduce the specific energy intensity of polymer production and, as result, decrease greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. The company started implementing the investment phase of the project in 2020 and the production start is planned for 2022.

As part of the company’s goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2025, SIBUR in June signed an agreement with Linde’s Russian unit for a joint utilization project focusing on the carbon dioxide generated as a by-product at Sibur’s facility in Dzerzhinsk. The company will transport crude carbon dioxide to a gas treatment unit that will be built by Linde to process crude CO2 into a commercial-grade product usable in the food industry. The project will help utilize about 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Chemicals are essential for more than 95% of the world’s manufactured goods and the sector is currently responsible for around 5% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Worldwide product demand is expected to quadruple by 2050. The Forum’s LCET initiative entered its next implementation stage with the chemical companies’ collaboration agreement. The LCET initiative calls for new ways to finance net-zero solutions, sharing expertise and reducing investment risks.

According to ICIS-MRC Price report, SIBUR Tobolsk will reduce its capacity utilisation in October due to problems with raw materials. But by November, the company intends to resolve the problem with the shortage of feedstocks for PP production. The annual production capacity is 500,000 tonnes.

SIBUR is the largest vertically integrated gas processing and petrochemical company in Russia, uniting a number of production sites in various regions of the Russian Federation. The company sells products to consumers in the fuel and energy complex, automotive, construction, consumer goods, chemical and other industries in more than 80 countries around the world.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indonesia's PT Pertamina is in plans to resume operations at its sole polypropylene (PP) plant in Plaju, South Sumatera this week after a scheduled maintenance, according to CommoPlast.

The outage at the company's 47,000 mt/year of PP plant began on 16 September and was to last for about 17 days. Thus, this plant was initially scheduled to resume operations on 3 October, 2021.

As MRC informed before, Pertamina was forced to take its PP unit in West Java off-line on 26 June, 2020, following an unspecified technical glitch at the upstream RFCC unit that cause a disruption of the propylene feeds. The PP plant was brought back on-line on 7-8 July, 2020. The RFCC unit produces 45,000 tons of propylene annually, while the PP plant has a capacity of 45,000 tons/year.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, 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.

Pertamina is an Indonesian state-owned oil and natural gas corporation based in Jakarta. It was created in August 1968 by the merger of Pertamin (established 1961) and Permina (established 1957). Pertamina is the world's largest producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
MRC

1. US Government asks oil-and-gas companies to help lower fuel costs

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The White House has been speaking with U.S. oil and gas producers in recent days about helping to bring down rising fuel costs, according to two sources familiar with the matter, said Hydrocarbonprocessing. Energy costs are rising worldwide, in some cases leading to shortages in major economies like China and India. In the United States, the average retail cost of a gallon of gas is at a seven-year high, and winter fuel costs are expected to surge, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Oil-and-gas production remains below the nation's peak reached in 2019.




MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Crude oil futures were higher in mid-morning trade in Asia Oct. 15 as bullish US inventory data and requirements for the upcoming winter continued to support the demand outlook, reported S&P Global.

At 10:25 am Singapore time (0225 GMT), the ICE December Brent futures contract was up 49 cents/b (0.58%) from the previous close at USD84.49/b, while the NYMEX November light sweet crude contract was 42 cents/b (0.52%) higher at USD81.73/b.

"Crude oil gained amid signs of ongoing tightness in the market. US inventories at Cushing, the pricing hub for WTI, has also recorded the biggest fall since June," ANZ research analysts said in a note Oct 15, adding that the US Energy Information Administration expects shortages of natural gas to boost demand for crude oil by 500,000 b/d over the next six months.

Crude Inventories at NYMEX delivery point of Cushing, Oklahoma fell almost 2 million barrels to 33.55 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 8, the lowest since October 2018 and nearly 35% behind the five-year average, latest EIA data showed.

The EIA data showed that total US commercial crude inventories climbed 6.09 million barrels to 426.98 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 8, narrowing the inventory deficit to the five-year average to 6.2% from 7% the week before. Total US gasoline stocks fell 1.96 million barrels to 223.11 million barrels in the week, while distillate stocks fell 20,000 barrels to 129.31 million barrels.

Tightening availability at Cushing has supported prompt WTI pricing and contributed to a significant widening in the forward curve's backwardation. The year-ahead WTI contract settled at a USD7.47/b discount to the front-month Oct. 14, the widest backwardation since July 13.

As MRC informed before, US commercial crude stocks fell 3.48 million barrels to 413.96 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 17, to more than 8% below the five-year average, Energy Information Administration data showed. Stocks were last lower Oct. 5, 2018.

We remind that in late August, 2021, US crude stocks dropped sharply while petroleum products supplied by refiners hit an all-time record despite the rise in coronavirus cases nationwide, the Energy Information Administration said. Crude inventories fell by 7.2 million barrels in the week to Aug. 27 to 425.4 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 3.1 million-barrel drop. Product supplied by refineries, a measure of demand, rose to 22.8 million barrels per day in the most recent week. That's a one-week record, and signals strength in consumption for diesel, gasoline and other fuels by consumers and exporters.

We also remind that US crude oil production is expected to fall by 160,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2021 to 11.12 million bpd, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a monthly report, a smaller decline than its previous forecast for a drop of 210,000 bpd.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical (NSRP) is in plans to resume operations at its new polypropylene (PP) plant in Vietnam on 17 October, 2021, after an unscheduled maintenance, reported CommoPlast.

The 400,000 mt year of PP plant was unexpectedly shut on 7 October, 2021, due to a technical glitch.

As MRC reported earlier, NSRP has just recently completed maintenance works at its new polypropylene (PP) plant in Vietnam. This plant was shut on 24 August, 2021, instead of the initially scheduled date of 17 August, for approximately three weeks. The company decided to postpone the maintenance shutdown at this plant by one week from the previous schedule due to the COVID-19 related lockdown. Thus, the new PP plant came back on-line in mid-September, 2021.

We also remind that Vietnam’s Nghi Son oil refinery officially began commercial production from 14 November 2018, following months of tests. The USD9 billion refinery is 35.1% owned by Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan Co, 35.1% - by Kuwait Petroleum, 25.1% - by PetroVietnam and 4.7% - by Mitsui Chemicals Inc.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, 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