Hydrogen Utopia expands plastics-to-hydrogen projects in Poland

Hydrogen Utopia expands plastics-to-hydrogen projects in Poland

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hydropolis United has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with a Polish regional municipal waste management operator to develop a waste-to-hydrogen system, said the company.

The agreement between the Hydrogen Utopia International (HUI) subsidiary and Regionalny Zaklad Zagospodarowania Odpadow (RZZO) will convert end of life plastics into hydrogen. A plant can be constructed on as little as 1.5 hectares and easily bolted onto existing waste facilities, using scalable and adaptable technology.

HUI has exclusive rights in Hungary, Poland and Greece to use Powerhouse Energy Group (PHE) technology, which converts plastic into hydrogen, and non-exclusive rights in the rest of the world. RZZO will provide a plot of land for the plant and will provide the waste plastic feedstock needed to produce hydrogen, subject to the final contract.

The site is expected to have capacity to process 40 tonnes of plastic waste per day to produce up to 2-3 tonnes/day of hydrogen as well as electricity and heat, with the latter likely to be fed into a district heating system.

RZZO, which was established to deal with new legislation on waste management, will also assist in procuring funding from the EU, national or local grants, and/or private funding, as well as assisting in offtake partners for the energy and hydrogen produced at the plant.

HUI’s flagship project is set to be in Konin, Poland, following an agreement between the firm and the City of Konin signed in February 2021. It is likely to come online in the next year.

As per MRC, BP announced that it has agreed Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with a series of new potential customers for its proposed clean hydrogen production facility in Teesside in north-east England. In March, Bp announced plans for a clean hydrogen facility in Teesside (H2Teesside) that would aim to produce up to 1GW of ‘blue’ hydrogen - 20% of the UK’s hydrogen target - by 2030. At the same time, it announced it had signed initial MoUs to scope the supply of hydrogen to chemicals manufacturer Venator and gas distributor Northern Gas Networks.

Hydropolis United is a subsidiary of Hydrogen Utopia International Plc (a technology company that convert non-recyclable waste plastics to hydrogen). Hydrogen Utopia last week admitted its ordinary shares to trading on the AQSE Growth Market. It raised gross proceeds of GDP3 million by way of a subscription and placing. Hydrogen Utopia existing cash resources, together with the net proceeds of its fundraising, will be used to fund the pre-build costs of its facility, marketing and business development and working capital.

RZZO works closely with the local government and has a long-term contract to manage municipal waste with the city of Ostrow Wielkopolski. It has built several modern waste management facilities in the region.
MRC

Saudi Aramco and AEC signed MOU to strengthen digital ecosystem in Saudi Arabia

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Aramco and Advanced Electronics Company (AEC), a SAMI company, are collaborating to promote the localization of digital businesses in Saudi Arabia, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The two companies have signed a MOU to accelerate the kingdom’s digital ecosystem development.

The partnership aims to support wider efforts to enable Internet of Things technologies, computing and communication, robotics, drones, and semiconductors that complement the expansion of the digital ecosystem at large in the kingdom.

Aramco has included the Industrial Digital Business under the industrial investment program, Aramco Namaat, which aims to complement the establishment of various digital hubs in Saudi Arabia.

The program aims to maximize local content, contribute to GDP growth, create new jobs, accelerate digital talent development, and enhance Aramco’s reliability and operational efficiency.

Ahmad Al Sa’adi, Aramco SVP Technical Services, said: “This partnership aims to help us to develop technologies and local talent as we work with leading technology providers to add value to the company and wider economy.”

The program is designed to drive increased investment, economic diversification, job creation and workforce development within the kingdom.

As MRC informed before, in June 2020, Aramco finalized its USD69 billion acquisition of a 70% stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the Middle East's biggest petrochemical maker. SABIC reported more than a fivefold year-on-year increase in its Q3 net profit to USD1.49 billion thanks to higher average sales prices.

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 2,265,290 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2021, up by 14% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,363,850 tonnes in January-November, 2021, up by 25% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

Saudi Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a Saudi Arabian national oil and natural gas company based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco's value has been estimated at up to USD10 trillion in the Financial Times, making it the world"s most valuable company. Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 260 billion barrels, and largest daily oil production.
MRC

Lanaz to use Honeywell technology to modernize Iraqi refinery

Lanaz to use Honeywell technology to modernize Iraqi refinery

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell announced that the Lanaz Company will use UOP modular naphtha hydrotreating and fixed-bed platforming process units to upgrade its refinery in Iraq said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The project marks the first use of UOP modular technology in the country and will help Lanaz comply with increasingly strict specifications for fuel products. UOP has supplied licensing and basic engineering design services as well as full modular units to Lanaz, based in Erbil in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

As refiners in developing economies seek to upgrade their facilities to produce high-quality gasoline, many are seeking modular solutions to maintain costs and mitigate risk with pre-fabrication and assembly completed in a safe and controlled environment off-site. In addition, modular technology provides a faster pathway to operations with facilities coming online less time.

The Lanaz Refinery is a fully equipped, high capacity refinery built in 2008 in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and processes about 100,000 bpd of crude oil.

We remind, Honeywell announced Zhenhua Petrochemical Co. Ltd will use Honeywell UOP’s C3 Oleflex technology for propane dehydrogenation to process 1 million metric tons per year of polymer-grade propylene for a proposed plant in Dongying City, Shandong Province, China.

As MRC reported earlier, in March 2021, Honeywell announced that Hengli Petrochemical Co. Ltd. successfully used Callidus burner technology from Honeywell UOP to minimize nitrogen oxide (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions in China, and reduce the impact of these emissions while ensuring safe and stable operations.

Honeywell UOP is a leading international supplier and licensor of process technology, catalysts, adsorbents, equipment, and consulting services to the petroleum refining, petrochemical, and gas processing industries. Honeywell UOP is part of Honeywell’s Performance Materials and Technologies strategic business group, which also includes Honeywell Process Solutions, a pioneer in automation control, instrumentation and services for the oil and gas, refining, petrochemical, chemical and other industries.
MRC

USW offers modified proposal to ExxonMobil in attempt to end eight-month Texas refinery lockout

USW offers modified proposal to ExxonMobil in attempt to end eight-month Texas refinery lockout

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The United Steelworkers union (USW) on Thursday modified its contract proposal to ExxonMobil in a bid to end an eight-month lockout of about 600 workers at the company’s Beaumont, Texas, refinery, reported Reuters with reference to a union official's statement.

The sides held their first negotiating session since late October, meeting for about an hour on Thursday morning, said Bryan Gross, USW international representative.

"We made a few modifications around holiday pay and a few other items to match other ExxonMobil contracts at the Baytown (Texas) and Baton Rouge (Louisiana) refineries," Gross said. He said the proposal modifications were not concessions.

The two sides were awaiting results from a US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-supervised decertification vote on whether to remove the union from the plant.

The company has said it would end the lockout when an agreement is reached or when the union is removed through decertification.

Exxon has kept operating the 369,000-bpd refinery and oil-blending facility using supervisors, managers and temporary operators. The facility produces gasoline and Mobil 1 motor oil.

On Dec. 29, the NLRB said it impounded ballots in the decertification vote while it investigates the union's complaints of unfair labor practices against Exxon. Results may not be known for several weeks, a NLRB spokeswoman said.

The federal board is reviewing union charges that the months-long lockout was intended to break the union at the plant and that Exxon improperly aided a union-removal campaign. Exxon has denied the allegations.

As MRC informed before, ExxonMobil said on Dec. 27, its Baytown, Texas, refinery continued to operate at reduced rates following a fire on Dec. 23, and that the unit involved remained shut down. The company has not yet determined the cause of the fire, but said it was continuing to empty the unit so it could safely enter the facility and assess what impact it would have on production. A filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said the fire occurred at the facility's hydro desulfurization unit 1.

Exxon's Baytown facility is home to a chemical plant, an olefins plant and the country's fourth-biggest oil refinery, with capacity to process 560,500 bpd of crude.

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 2,265,290 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2021, up by 14% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,363,850 tonnes in January-November, 2021, up by 25% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC

Tilley-Phoenix acquires Callahan Chemical

Tilley-Phoenix acquires Callahan Chemical

MOSCOW (MRC) --Tilley-Phoenix Group, a US-based specialty ingredients distributor and services provider, has acquired Callahan Chemical Company for an undisclosed sum, said the company.

Callahan, with operations in the Philadelphia and Boston areas, is a regional distributor of ingredients and compounds.

The company serves customers in end markets such as food and beverage, personal care and cosmetics, pharmaceutical and nutraceuticals, HI&I (household institutional and industrial) and CASE (coatings, adhesives, sealants and elastomers).

Baltimore, Maryland-based Tilley-Phoenix is a portfolio company of SK Capital Partners, which announced the acquisition in a statement earlier this week.

As per MRC, US thermoplastic compounds company Teknor Apex has completed a new 50,000 square-metre facility at Rothenburg ob der Tauber, southeast of Frankfurt, Germany, to produce thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) and engineering thermoplastics (ETPs) compounds. The Rothenburg facility produces thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) and engineering thermoplastics (ETPs), ranging from general-purpose compounds to highly specialized formulations. An extensive laboratory will be used for developing new compounds and providing customers with design support, application development, as well as product and process training.

As MRC wrote previously, in May 2018, Teknor Apex announced that it had developed a series of flexible PVC injection moulding compounds that have been used successfully in automotive window encapsulation.
MRC