Kem One awards engineering work for project in France

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Chemieanlagenbau Chemnitz has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management contract by PVC manufacturer Kem One for developing a green chlor-alkali electrolysis plant at Fos-Sur-Mer in France, said Process-worldwide.

The new plant will replace the company’s existing diaphragm electrolysis plant to produce chlorine, caustic soda and hydrogen. With an order volume of 64 million dollars, it is the largest order of this type in the history of the Chemnitz-based company.

Kem One, headquartered in Lyon, France, commissioned CAC at the end of 2021 to build a modern, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly membrane electrolysis plant to replace the existing diaphragm electrolysis plant. CAC will implement the plant at the French site in Fos-Sur-Mer as an EPCm project together with its long-standing Japanese technology partner Asahi Kasei Corporation. Specifically, it means that CAC is responsible for the basic and detail engineering, procurement and delivery, site management and commissioning support.

The plant on the coast of southern France is to be gradually converted to sea salt in order to be able to react more flexibly to possible supply bottlenecks in the future with this independent supply of raw materials. By electrolyzing the salt, the Fos-sur-Mer plant produces chlorine, caustic soda and hydrogen. The chlorine produced is used on-site to manufacture vinyl chloride monomer, the basic substance for PVC. This material is flame retardant, insulating and resistant to chemical attack, wear and tear. It is therefore suitable for a wide range of applications in construction, packaging and medical technology.

The site's current capacities include caustic soda, 382,000 dmt (dry metric tonnes)/year; and chlorine, 341,000 tonnes/year.

As per MRC, Kem One, Europe's third largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer, has brought capacity utilization at its PVC plant in Hernani (Hernani, Spain) back to normal levels after it resumed production. The company had to close this enterprise with a capacity of 42,000 tonnes of emulsion PVC (EPVC) per year for unscheduled repairs in early January due to the discovery of technical problems. A few days later, the malfunctions were eliminated, after which the company gradually brought this plant to normal operation.

Based in Lyon, Kem One has 22 production sites in 10 countries including Balan, Saint-Fons, Saint-Auban, Berre, Fos-sur-Mer, Lavera and Vauvert. The total design capacity of the company's enterprises is 870 thousand tons of PVC.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Turkey's CFN Kimya has resumed production of EPS after a scheduled overhaul at Gebkim, Turkey, Polymerupdate said.

The company shut this production facility with a capacity of 150,000 tonnes of EPS per year for scheduled maintenance works on 22 December.

Earlier it was reported that Ravago Group, a major European producer of petrochemical products, began planned turnaround at EPS production in Izmir (Izmir, Turkey). The company has postponed scheduled repairs at the plant with a capacity of 180,000 tonnes of EPS per year from 20 December, 2021 to 22 January, 2022.

According to ScanPlast by Market Report, in Russia, the estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics in December last year amounted to 47,900 tonnes, which is 3% more than in December 2020. At the end of 2021, the estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics in the country amounted to 563,420 tonnes, which is 12% higher than the consumption figure for the previous year (501,260 tonnes in 2020).

Cfn Kimya is based in Turkey, headquartered in Kocaeli. The company operates in the polymer production sector. The company was founded on 27 July, 2012.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical (NSRP), Vietnam’s largest refinery, will no longer require a lengthy shutdown this February after major shareholders agreed to provide short-term funding to the company to settle the debts, according to CommoPlast with reference to media reports.

NSRP previously reduced its capacity utilisation to 80% in January due to financial difficulties.

Initially, te company was facing the threat of a lengthy shutdown owing to a shortage of crude supply.

As MRC reported earlier, on 26 January, 2022, state oil firm PetroVietnam blamed NSRP for the recent production cut. State media had reported PetroVietnam had failed to make an early payment under a "Fuel Products Offtake Agreement" (FPOA) with the refinery, causing financial difficulties for Nghi Son. But PetroVietnam, which owns 25.1% of the 200,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Thanh Hoa province, insisted it was not to blame.

As MRC wrote before, 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.

We remind that NSRP shut its new polypropylene (PP) plant in Vietnam for maintenance 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.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, 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.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Linde announced it has expanded its existing agreement with Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, and will begin supplying CO2 and hydrogen to the Celanese manufacturing facility in Clear Lake, Texas, said the Hydrocarbonprocesing.

Linde currently supplies oxygen, nitrogen and carbon monoxide to the Clear Lake facility. Under the terms of the expanded agreement, Linde will now also supply CO2 captured in its nearby carbon monoxide production facility. Celanese will use the CO2, plus hydrogen, as an alternative feedstock to produce methanol with a significantly lower carbon intensity in their Fairway Methanol LLC joint venture. By using the carbon dioxide captured from Linde's facility, the hydrogen supplied by Linde will also have a lower carbon intensity. Supply is expected to commence in the first half of 2023.

"Celanese is taking strategic steps aimed at reducing our operational impact globally, and the work we are doing with recycled CO2 at our Clear Lake facility is a significant step forward in our efforts to preserve the environment and be a responsible community partner," said John Fotheringham, Senior Vice President, Acetyls, Celanese. "By working with Linde, we expect to produce lower carbon intensity methanol with a high capital efficiency at a competitive cost."

"Linde's products and technologies can assist customers in finding ways to produce essential chemicals with a lower carbon intensity," said Jeff Barnhard, Vice President South Region, Linde. "By capturing the carbon dioxide from our production facility and providing this to Celanese for use in their process, we are helping them to reduce their carbon footprint while also lowering Linde's own carbon emissions."

Last March, BASF SE (Germany), Sabic (Saudi Arabia) and Linde (Germany) signed an agreement to develop electrically heated cracking furnaces. Steam crackers require a significant amount of energy to break hydrocarbons into olefins and aromatics. The reaction takes place at a temperature of about 850°C. Today, these temperatures are reached by burning fossil fuels. The project aims to reduce CO2 emissions by providing electricity to the process. Using electricity from renewable sources, the revolutionary technology will reduce CO2 emissions by 90%.

As per MRC, RusKhimAlliance (a parity joint venture between Gazprom and RusGazDobycha), which is implementing a project to build an ethane-containing gas processing complex (EPEG) in Ust-Luga, has agreed on strategic cooperation with Germany's Linde GmbH. In particular, the companies signed an agreement on strategic cooperation in the areas of deep processing and liquefaction of natural gas, gas chemistry, and the introduction of advanced technologies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- During the visit of the delegation headed by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to Beijing (PRC), negotiations were held between PJSC Rosneft Oil Company and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and the Agreement was signed on the supply of 100 million tons of oil to China through Kazakhstan for 10 years, said the company.

Crude oil will be processed at factories in northwest China to meet the country's needs for petroleum products. The Company's total supplies to China since 2005 amounted to 442 million tons of oil. Rosneft is the leading oil exporter to PRC, providing 7% of the country’s total demand in raw annually. Rosneft is also one of the leading suppliers of petroleum products to China. Since 2009, the Company has exported about 41 million tons of petroleum products.

Also during the visit, agreements were signed in the field of low carbon development, digitalization and technological cooperation. Energy cooperation of Rosneft with Chinese partners is integral, covering all business segments.

In Udmurtia there is a joint mining enterprise of Rosneft and Sinopec – Udmurtneft. Over the 15 years of joint work, the enterprise's production amounted to over 96 million tons, more than 1.2 thousand new wells were drilled, and the volume of development drilling increased 6.3 times. During this period, Udmurtneft began developing 10 new fields, and the total increase in recoverable reserves amounted to about 110 million tons of oil.

Beijing Gas Company owns 20% of the share of Vercknechonskneftegas (a subsidiary of the Company), which is engaged in the exploration and development of the Verkhnechonskoye field located in the Irkutsk Oblast, which is one of the largest in the Eastern Siberia. The cumulative production of the enterprise is more than 87 million tons of oil. In addition, Rosneft and Beijing Gas are planning to implement a project to develop a network of gas service stations in Russia.

Cooperation with Chinese partners is also actively being developed within the framework of the large-scale project the "Zvezda" Shipbuilding Complex, which is being implemented by the Consortium of companies headed by Rosneft.

Rosneft and CNPC are organizers of Russian-Chinese Energy Business Forum established by the instruction of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and the President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping. The objective of this Forum is a development of the energy dialogue between Russia and China, increase in bidirectional commodity circulation, extension of the portfolio of joint projects, attraction of investments and funding of projects.

Also, Rosneft and CNPC cooperate within the Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC), which was established by companies to develop cooperation in a number of strategic areas: interaction in the exploration and development of oil and gas fields, oil refining and petrochemicals, trade in oil and oil products, scientific and technical research, training of personnel, as well as the implementation of promising projects in the field of supply and oil services. In November 2021 there was the fourth meeting of the JCC.

As per MRC, Rosneft Oil Company and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed the Memo on Cooperation in the field of low carbon development. Within the visit of the delegation headed by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to Beijing (PRC), PJSC Rosneft Oil Company and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed the Memo on Cooperation in the field of low carbon development.

Rosneft is the world's largest public oil company. The company accounts for about 5% of global oil production, and its proven reserves in the international category will exceed 5 billion tons of oil equivalent. The structure of Rosneft includes the Angarsk Polymer Plant and Ufaorgsintez (part of the structure of Bashneft) after the closing of the deal to purchase Bashneft on October 12, 2016. The main shareholder of Rosneft is the state-controlled Rosneftegaz (50% plus one share), and the British BP owns another 19.75%.
MRC