Novatek, Uniper ink blue ammonia, hydrogen supply deal

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Novatek and Uniper signed a term sheet on the long-term supply of large volumes of low-carbon ammonia, said the company.

These supplies will be delivered to Uniper’s markets in Germany and North-West Europe. Novatek is developing a major low-carbon ammonia production facility on the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia, making use of the vast local gas reserves. Carbon dioxide formed during the natural gas-to-hydrogen production process will be captured and stored using a highly efficient underground storage infrastructure (CCS).

Uniper is planning an ammonia import terminal in Wilhelmshaven which will be equipped with a storage facility and a cracker operating with green power. The imported low-carbon ammonia can thus be transformed into gaseous hydrogen – and it will be fed into the future German hydrogen pipeline system. Low-carbon ammonia can also be supplied directly as a feedstock and as a fuel. Modern technology, beneficial geologic parameters and highly optimized production and logistics will help drive the carbon footprint of the supplied ammonia well below the threshold of the EU Taxonomy.

Klaus-Dieter Maubach, CEO of Uniper: "This project would cover a significant share of the low carbon hydrogen demand in Germany. Uniper is committed to reaching carbon neutrality in its European Generation business by 2035. Decarbonized and low-carbon gases such as hydrogen will play a major role in achieving these goals. Germany, like many other heavily industrialized countries, will rely on hydrogen imports, as the demand for hydrogen will exceed domestic production capacities. Hence, we actively set up global collaborations and partnerships and plan Wilhelmshaven as a major hydrogen hub. I firmly believe that Novatek, which has already developed a state-of-the-art LNG facility on Yamal, will deliver one of the world’s most efficient and cleanest ammonia export projects providing Europe with ammonia and hydrogen featuring a carbon footprint below the EU Taxonomy threshold."

As per MRC, in January2021, Uniper and Novatek signed a MoU to jointly investigate the potential for Novatek supply Blue and Green Hydrogen to Uniper’s power stations and markets in Russia and North West Europe. Blue Hydrogen can be produced from natural gas, accompanied with the CO2 capture and storage in geological underground formations, while Green Hydrogen is produced by using renewable energy.

Gazprom, NOVATEK and SIBUR have found an alternative route for the supply of condensate for processing from the fields of the monopoly in the Nadym-Pur-Taz region. Gazprom, forced to reduce production after the accident at the condensate preparation plant in Urengoy, agreed to redirect 85 thousand tons of raw materials per month to the Purovsky plant of NOVATEK.

Uniper is a leading international energy company, has around 12,000 employees, and operates in more than 40 countries. The company plans for its power generation business in Europe to be carbon-neutral by 2035. Uniper’s roughly 35 GW of installed generation capacity make it one of the world‘s largest electricity producers.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Norway’s Equinor said that it collaborated with France’s Engie to develop a project designed to produce low-carbon hydrogen from natural gas in Belgium, according to Kemicalinfo.

The announcement of the H2BE project - which aims to produce hydrogen from natural gas using autothermal reforming (ATR) combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS) - follows a memorandum of understanding between the two companies signed in February.

The Belgian government released its hydrogen strategy in October and Equinor said the H2BE project would help Belgium deliver on the strategy.

Equinor is a major supplier of Norwegian gas to Belgium, with deliveries sent into the Zeebrugge receiving terminal.

It said the ATR technology allows for decarbonization rates above 95% and for producing hydrogen at large scale at “competitive” cost levels.

Equinor and Engie now plan to launch a feasibility study to assess the technical and economic suitability of a site in the Ghent area to produce the hydrogen.

“Commercial talks with potential hydrogen offtakers, predominantly large, hard-to-abate industries, continue simultaneously,” Equinor said.

Discussions are also ongoing with North Sea Port on integration with port infrastructure, it said, while Belgian grid operator Fluxys is also joining the project.

All partners aim to start operations well before 2030 in order to contribute to Belgium’s 2030 interim decarbonization targets.

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 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Materials supplier Geon Performance Solutions has acquired Roscom Inc., an ISO 9001:2015–certified PVC compounding facility in Croydon, Pa., said Canplastics.

The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Roscom makes flexible and rigid PVC compounds for both indoor and outdoor applications. In a Dec. 20 news release, Geon CEO Tracy Garrison said that Roscom “is an excellent fit” for Geon.

"This addition represents a key step forward in our strategy," Garrison said. “The Croydon facility and tenured team will enable us to better serve our customers in the Northeastern U.S. and parts of Canada. We intend to maximize the incredible expertise of the Roscom team and look forward to bringing its additional product portfolio to our customers."

Roscom president and chief operating officer Nick Lynch, will remain with the company through the transition as an advisor, the news release also said, and sales and manufacturing operations for both companies will continue as usual through the transition.

Westlake, Ohio-based Geon operates 10 manufacturing plants in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and China, and supplies materials for the appliances, building and construction, electronics, healthcare, transportation, and wire and cable sectors.

As per MRC, Westlake Chemical plans to begin scheduled maintenance works at its cracker at Lake Charles, Louisiana in September. The cracking unit with a capacity of 740,000 tonnes of ethylene per year (Petro 2) will be shut down for maintenance for 60 days starting from September.

Asa per ICIS-MRC Price Report, negotiations on January shipment of Russian polyvinyl chloride (PVC) have started this week. At the same time, both suppliers and buyers were in no hurry to agree on deals for the next month.
Independently of each other, producers began to announce December prices for January shipments. PVC prices continued to decrease on the foreign markets, but this factor has not affected prices in Russia yet. Because of long logistics and "low season", converters do not even think about an import alternative.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lotte Chemical Corp., a petrochemical unit of South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group, said Friday it will spend 250 billion won (USD211.4 million) to expand its domestic production line of ethylene oxide adduct (EOA), according to Kemicalinfo.

The expansion of the production line in Daesan, a county in the central South Chungcheong Province, will help boost its EOA production capacity by an annual 150,000 tons to 480,000 tons globally, the company said in a release.

It will also increase the production of high-purity ethylene oxide (HPEO), a main source of EOA, to 250,000 tons, the company said.

EOA is an ethylene-based ingredient used in a chemical agent that reduces water in concrete used for the construction of large structures, such as skyscrapers, piers and dams. The agent reduces the water usage by 30%, which enhances the durability of the concrete.

Lotte Chemical invested 120 billion won in January to expand the EOA production by 100,000 tons at its Yeosu factory on the country’s southern coast.

Currently, the Daesan factory has production capacity of 50,000 tons, with the Yeosu factory touting 230,000 tons and a China-based factory having 50,000 tons.

As MRC informed before, Lotte Chemical shut its naphtha-fed steam cracker in Daesan for an annual maintenance on 15 May, 2021. This cracker with the capacity of 1.1 million mt/year of ethylene and 550,000 mt/year of propylene resumed production on 23 June, 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 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.

Lotte Chemical runs two naphtha crackers in South Korea. One cracker is located in Daesan county in Seosan which can produce 1.1 million tonnes per year of ethylene with the other 1.2 million tonnes per year cracker in the southwestern city of Yeosu.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Former Prime Minister of France, who is also a representative of Russia on the board of directors of Zarubezhneft, Francois Fillon has been nominated and elected to the board of directors of SIBUR Holding, Interfax reports.

The Board of Directors included Fillon in the list of candidates on November 18, but SIBUR announced this simultaneously with the disclosure of the decision of the shareholders' meeting of December 22 on the election of a new board.

In addition, the board of directors includes Anton Ustinov from SOGAZ (head and owner of SG-Invest LLC, which holds 16.54% of the insurer's shares) and Albert Shigabutdinov from TAIF.

Fillon became an independent director. As noted in SIBUR, "Mr. Fillon is not only a top-level manager, but also a consistent supporter of promoting the sustainable development agenda, the importance of recycling and reusing raw materials." SIBUR in its strategy is also guided by the principles of the circular economy. Mr. Fillon's experience, his extensive knowledge of management, economics and business processes will help the company in promoting ESG initiatives, "SIBUR said.

SIBUR's shareholder Kirill Shamalov, independent director Andrei Vernikov (leading researcher in the sector of evolution of socio-economic systems at the Center for Evolutionary Economics of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences), and the deceased Vladimir Razumov left the board of directors, consisting of 12 people.

Otherwise, the council remained unchanged: Ksenia Sosnina, General Director of JSC Ilim Group, Sergey Vasnetsov (previously he worked as Senior Vice President for Strategy at LyondellBasell), Alexey Komissarov (Vice-Rector and Director of the Higher School of Public Administration RANEPA), Head of Gazprom oil Alexander Dyukov, Chairman of the Board of PJSC SIBUR Holding Dmitry Konov, Chairman of the Board of PJSC NOVATEK Leonid Mikhelson, member of the Board of Directors of NOVATEK Gennady Timchenko, Executive Vice President of the Silk Road Fund Wang Dan, and CEO Chemical Department of Sinopec Corporation Li Chengfeng.

Mikhelson, the main shareholder of SIBUR, was re-elected Chairman of the Board. Fillon joined the Audit, Human Resources and Remuneration Committee and the Sustainable Development Committee. Ustinov and Shigabutdinov - to the Committee on Strategy and Investments, Shigabutdinov also to the Committee on Sustainable Development.

Mikhelson owns 31% in SIBUR, Timchenko - 14.45%, shares of Chinese Sinopec and the Silk Road Fund - 8.5%, SOGAZ - 10.625%, current and former top management - 12.325% (of which Shamalov's share is 3 , 3%), as well as TAIF shareholders - 15%. In early December, a number of personnel changes were announced in the management of SIBUR and TAIF.

In October, SIBUR closed the deal to acquire 100% of TAIF JSC, which includes Nizhnekamskneftekhim, Kazanorgsintez and TGK-16.

Ethylene and propylene are the main raw materials for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.

SIBUR manufactures and sells petrochemical products on the Russian and international markets in two business segments: olefins and polyolefins (polypropylene, polyethylene, BOPP, etc.), as well as plastics, elastomers and intermediate products (synthetic rubbers, expanded polystyrene, PET, etc.)
MRC