Eni and CNR resigned their agreement

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The President of the National Research Council (CNR), Maria Chiara Carrozza, and Eni's CEO, Claudio Descalzi, today signed the renewal of the framework agreement as part of joint research and technological innovation activities for a duration of three years plus two additional optional years, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The agreement provides for the development of projects and initiatives to address the challenges of the energy transition through the identification of strategic areas of development such as operational excellence, i.e. the identification of key technologies for resource development, decarbonization, energy saving, the circular economy and sustainability in processes related to the local community development.

The Eni and the CNR partnership began in 2009 and over the years has led to innovative solutions in various fields, including solar energy, the phyto-purification of contaminated water and soils and the reuse of CO2, seeing the registration of around 24 patents for proprietary technologies.

The new Agreement sits alongside the Joint Research Agreement, signed by the parties in 2019, which led to the creation of four joint research centers, located in Southern Italy (Lecce, Gela, Metaponto and Portici) that contribute to the design of projects for sustainable environmental and economic development in Italy and worldwide.

As MRC wrote earlier, Eni is evaluating conversion of its Livorno refinery in northwest Italy into a biorefinery, as part of the Italian company's wider strategy to make its activities more environmentally sustainable. Eni has already converted two of its Italian refineries and is looking to almost double its biorefining capacity to around 2 million mt/year by 2024, and expand this to at least five times by 2050, as part of its pledge to achieve complete carbon neutrality by 2050.

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 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

Eni, abbreviation of Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, in full Eni SpA, Italian energy company operating primarily in petroleum, natural gas, and petrochemicals. Established in 1953, it is one of Europe's largest oil companies in terms of sales.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- INEOS Styrolution, the global leader in styrenics, has today confirmed its decision to invest into a pilot plant for advanced recycling of polystyrene, said the company.

The site will be set up in collaboration with Recycling Technologies in Swindon, UK. It is expected to be operational in the second half of 2022.

The decision announced today is a significant step forward launching polystyrene recycling through depolymerisation technology. Depolymerisation is an advanced recycling technology that converts polystyrene waste feedstock back into its main building block, Styrene which can then be used to manufacture new polystyrene with identical properties to the virgin material. The unique properties of polystyrene allow this efficient monomer recycling process to be harnessed avoiding the need to downcycle polystyrene. An additional benefit of depolymerisation is a significant decrease of greenhouse gas emissions when compared with the production of virgin polystyrene from naphtha.

The Swindon pilot plant will be based on Recycling Technologies’ fluidised bed reactor technology, which offers excellent scalability making it the technology of choice for future even larger recycling plants.

Dr. Alexander Gluck, President EMEA at INEOS Styrolution comments, “I am excited to see this project move ahead. With Recycling Technologies, we have found a partner, who is not only offering a very attractive technology, but who is also sharing our own vision to avoid polystyrene ending up in landfills or being incinerated. We are on the right path to make polystyrene a circular material."

Adrian Griffiths, CEO & Founder of Recycling Technologies Ltd., adds, “We welcome INEOS Styrolution’s decision and are pleased to be a critical element of the team to build Europe’s first advanced chemical polystyrene recycling facility. Harnessing our fluidised bed engineering technology and expertise to recycling polystyrene is a critical step to making polystyrene circular."

As it was written earlier, INEOS Styrolution joined the U.S. Plastics Pact in their support for collaborative, solution-driven initiatives intended to drive significant system change in the design, use, and reuse of plastics. The U.S. Plastic Pact unites cross-sector approaches, setting a national strategy, and creating scalable solutions to create a path forward toward a circular economy for plastics in the United States by 2025.

As per ICIS-MRC Price Report, market participants said a shortage of material remained in the polystyrene (PS) market at the end of the month. Penoplex's December prices still remained under negotiation, the producer plans to announce them to market participants next week. The average spot styrene monomer (SM) prices grew to the range of USD1,550-1,570/tonne.

INEOS Styrolution is a privately owned multinational chemicals company consisting of 15 standalone business units, headquartered in Rolle, Switzerland and with its registered office in Lyndhurst, United Kingdom. It is the fourth largest chemicals company in the world measured by revenues (after BASF, Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell) and the largest privately owned company in the United Kingdom.
MRC

1. IEA raises 2022 average crude oil price assumption to USD79.40 a bbl

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The International Energy Agency (IEA) has upped its average Brent crude oil price assumption for 2022 to USD79.40 a bbl, but predicted a rally may ease off as prices that hit a three-year high last month push up global production, reported Reuters. The Paris-based IEA said on Tuesday that much of the uptick in supply is due to come from the United States. A hurricane battered the main US production and export hub in the Gulf coast in late August, but US output made up for half the increase in global oil production last month. But the IEA said in its monthly report that US production, despite climbing, would not return to pre-pandemic levels until the end of next year. It is due to account for 60% of non-OPEC+ supply gains in 2022.


MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- OPEC+ will closely monitor the market situation amid rising fears over the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant, but urgent decisions by the group are not necessary, reported S&P Global with reference to Russia's deputy prime minister Alexander Novak's statement Nov. 29.

The alliance is set to meet Dec. 2 to decide on January production levels amid a US -led attempt to lower prices by releasing stocks and fears over new lockdowns due to the new COVID-19 strain.

The rapidly spreading variant caused Dated Brent to plunge 11% on the day to US73.27/b on Nov. 26, according to S&P Global assessment.

"The emergence of a new variant always causes such market assessments, because various restrictive measures can be taken by the governments of different countries," Novak told reporters on the sidelines of the Russian-Chinese energy business forum, as quoted by Prime news agency.

"We need to monitor how the situation develops, we must carefully monitor the market. There is no need to make hasty decisions," Novak said.

The alliance pushed back the meeting of the OPEC+ ministerial monitoring committee to Dec. 2 to study the market situation in detail, Novak said.

At the same time, Russia does not see any need for urgent action by the OPEC+ alliance in light of rising concerns about the pandemic and there are no proposals by other OPEC+ countries to revise strategy or increase output.

As MRC informed before, demand for the products of manufacturers of polymer pipelines will grow significantly in Russia, primarily from the state. As part of the reforms in the housing and communal services sector, the fate of heating networks and water pipelines, which are worn out by 60%, will have to be decided. The required expenditures for upgrading the infrastructure amount to more than 1 trillion rubles. A large-scale municipal reform should also accelerate the process of replacing metal pipes with polymer ones in engineering networks.

Even the coronavirus pandemic has not affected the growth of the polymer segment in the past year or two. According to Rosstat, in 2020 the market for polymer pipes exceeded half a million tons, an increase of almost 15% compared to 2019. In the first nine months of this year, Russia produced 19% more polymers compared to the same period in 2020.

According to MRC's ScanPlast, the estimated consumption of PE in Russia amounted to 1,868.16 thousand tons in the first nine months of 2021, which is 18% more than in the same period a year earlier. The supply of all types of ethylene polymers increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Crude oil futures were sharply higher in mid-morning trade in Asia Nov. 29 as markets regained some calm after the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus sent oil prices plunging by more than 10% on Nov. 26, according to S&P Global.

At 9:41 am Singapore time (0141 GMT), the ICE January Brent futures contract was up USD3.24/b (4.46%) from the previous close at USD75.96/b, while the NYMEX January light sweet crude contract was USD3.44/b (5.05%) higher at USD71.59/b.

Investors were returning to buy the dip after markets plunged by more than 10% Nov. 26 on reports of a new COVID-19 variant from South Africa that appeared to be more transmissible and better able to evade immune responses.

However, analysts cautioned Nov. 29 that the impact of the new variant was still unclear.

"It's early days, with a lot more concern than facts. The virus may well be more transmissible, but it's hard to be sure yet. The symptoms are different from Delta, and seem to be mild in vaccinated young people (primarily fatigue), but it's fair to say that vaccinated young people have not been the most vulnerable group in the pandemic so far," ANZ analysts Brian Martin and Daniel Hynes said in a note.

The emergence of the new variant may dampen hopes of a swift economic recovery after the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 first appeared in end 2019 and sent the global economy into a tailspin.

Several countries have already announced bans on flights from South Africa and neighboring countries, while Israel has become the first country to ban entry to all foreigners for 14 days from Nov. 28.

We remind that, as MRC informed before, earlier this month, TotalEnergies and Daimler Truck AG signed an agreement on their joint commitment to the decarbonization of the road freight in the European Union. The partners will collaborate in the development of ecosystems for heavy-duty trucks running on hydrogen, with the intent to demonstrate the attractiveness and effectiveness of trucking powered by clean hydrogen and the ambition to play a lead role in kickstarting the rollout of hydrogen infrastructure for transportation.

We also remind that TotalEnergies has recently inaugurated the extension of Synova in Normandy, the French leader in recycled polypropylene (PP) production. TotalEnergies is therefore doubling its mechanical recycling production capacity for recycled polymers, to meet growing demand for sustainable polymers from customers, such as Automotive Manufacturer (Auto OEM) and the construction industry.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in January-September 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
MRC